


The Touch of Frost

by Prince_of_Exiles



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Anna and Elsa are Not Related (Disney), Body Horror, Body Shaming, Bromance, Child Abandonment, Child Loss, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Sisters, Swearing, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22746679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_of_Exiles/pseuds/Prince_of_Exiles
Summary: [On indefinite hiatus]The Frosted Throne sits empty, and the people of the Northernmost Kingdom must look to Prince Hans, Princess Elsa, and Princess Anna, the three heirs, to embark on a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Ahtohallan and determine which of them is the true Sovereign. But on the borders of the Kingdom, deep in the Wild Ways, a boy with powerful ice magic, the Touch of Frost that only heirs to the throne possess, is awakened by a vision from the Man in the Moon. Jack must fight for the throne. But there are dark plots afoot and danger stalking every step. Will Jack ascend The Frosted Throne or will he drag the brother he loves, and all the rest of his family, into a tragedy beyond his most monstrous of nightmares? Only Ahtohallan knows.
Relationships: Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Elsa (Disney)/Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Hans (Disney) & Jamie Bennett (Rise of the Guardians)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	1. They of the Royal Gift

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wanted to get this done by today, but it turned out to be a bigger project than I imagined. Nonetheless, it's my special day, so I decided to share some of it with you guys and cut out a slice to offer what I hope is a good portion. This is a little darker than the tone of the Frozen movies and the Rise of the Guardian movies, so do brace yourselves. Later chapters only get darker, though I am rooting for a happy ending.

The never-setting sun traced its warmth along the lower tundras of the Northernmost Kingdom, circling melted marshes and grasslands that bristled after the retreating snows. The Earth Caste worked crisply on the newly thawed fields. They were guarded by the Fire Caste who patrolled the resurfaced roads, the Summer Ways, alert for raids from man and beast alike. The Water Caste artisans turned from crafting snowshoes and braziers to hoes and water buckets. No one minded the Wind Caste seers, who were left to be lost in their trances, scrying for dark omens and bright visions. Higher up on the permafrost, the Frozen Tear Palace was awash with the light of the sun, cascading with waves of celestial blue. Towers and turrets, sweeping up to the sky, overlooked the four Castes that worked to keep the land alive, and the four Castes looked back to see the Fifth Caste watching over them.

But the Frosted Throne sat empty.

“Please- she’s barely got the Gift,” a father begged.

The deep lines on the Elder’s face could have been gouged from rock. 

“Do the Fire Caste beg for the lives of their children when they are called to fight the beasts and marauders on our borders?”

The mother had no words. She merely held on to her child.

The father swept his arm out angrily.

“No parent of any Caste would send an eight-year-old to her death!”

The Elder remained impassive.

“The other heir presumptives are not much older. You will do the duty you owe to your Caste and to your Kingdom.”

The little girl spoke up in a quavering voice.

“Truly, I am honoured, Father...”

“Anna…”

Her mother gripped her tighter but the Elder smiled, which did nothing to soften his face.

“Your daughter knows better; and who knows? The Rime Heart may beat in her. Your tribe will be honoured beyond all measure.” 

At last, the father could only kneel down and hold his wife and daughter.

“She’s all I have,” he pleaded.

“Nonsense!” the Elder snapped, gesturing to the cudgel-armed, masked Servitors who advanced. “The farmer toiling in the field, and the potter at her wheel. The Flameguard on her steed, and the Seer who, our future, reads. They, too, are your children.”

The Servitors had to restrain the father, even as the little girl tearfully surrendered. The mother tried to cling to her, but more Servitors were already coming for them.

“Please!” she wailed, her voice raw and ragged with emotion.

The Elder’s face could have sharpened steel.

“Child, you lost all claim to the girl the moment she beckoned the ice. What good are tantrums now?” Above the cries of the parents, he added, a little more gently, “You’re young, anyway. You’ll have other children.”

* * *

The first few days, Anna told herself not to cry, though when the curtains fell and blocked the midnight sun, she would let the hot tears gush and dribble into her dripping snot. When the Servitors drew the curtains back, she would have forced on a smile, ready for the morning exercises. 

“Good morning, Alek! Doris! Ella! Rick!”

The room was as silent as a grave- but something was different today. The closest masked Servitor (the one she named Ella since her mask was unmarked like the other three's) wordlessly gestured to the folding screen upon which a dress had been draped.

Anna flashed a smile but allowed herself a nervous hum as she slid off of her large bed and pattered over to change. She looked all the way up to where the dress hung atop the soaring panel and jumped. Three jumps later, she was on her bottom nursing an inelegant bruise.

Then the light caught the dress and made it sparkle like freshly lain snow.

“Oh.” She slapped her forehead. “It’s snow silk.” 

Reaching out a hand, she called to it with the funny tingle that tickled down her spine. As if picked up by a friendly ghost, the dress rose from its perch and drifted down to her. The dress was only cool to her touch, but a light frost spread along the marble floor where the lace sleeves and trim touched it. Despite herself, Anna went, “Wow!” 

“This is really old,” she added excitedly, “like maybe Queen Joan’s dress when she was still a little girl!”

There was a pointed knock on the screen, and Anna remembered herself and scrabbled to her feet.

“Just a moment!”

The sun had barely turned before Anna found herself escorted to a pair of crystal doors that loomed over her with the terrible beauty of their clear facets. Doris and Rick (or was it Ella and Aleck) pushed the massive doors inward, and they opened with a ringing hum. The mirror-bright floor was flawless ice, and a dozen or so watery reflections turned as their owners did. More mute Servitors, and two others. Anna’s gaze was drawn to the girl first. She was a little older than her- certainly taller. Her pale gold hair was woven into an ample fishtail braid, and her snow silk gown was tinted the palest blue that brightened to silver as it swept up to a wide neckline. Her blue eyes flickered with alarm, but their light quickly deadened, and the little mouth shrunk to a tight line. Next to that- well not quite next, but certainly thrown into relief- the sweetly smiling face of a copper-haired young man. His green eyes gleamed with interest in the diffuse light, and Anna found herself smiling back. Doris/Ella and Rick/Aleck gestured her in. With a deep breath, Anna lifted her chin and took a confident step forward- or tried to. Her foot caught itself on the hem of her skirt and the ground came up really, really fast.

“Oof!”

Brisk footfalls rushed up behind her, but it was a warm voice that made her look up.

“Are you alright?”

Anna gazed up into the handsome face and felt a hot blush creep over her cheeks.

“Erm, I’m fine. Thanks,” she mumbled, accepting his proffered hand.

“I’m Hans,” he offered as he pulled her gently to her feet, “of the Westergaard Tribe.”

“Anna. Arendelle. Tribe. I mean, I’m Arendelle of the Anna Tribe. No! I mean-! Anna. Yes, that’s my name. Anna of the Arendelle Tribe.” Anna laughed nervously and remembered to curtsey. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Hans.”

Hans dipped into a low bow.

“Princess Anna.” He rose with a smile that made Anna’s heart skip a beat or two. “The pleasure is mine.”

“Oh. Thank you for having the pleasure. Wait.”

Hans chuckled as Anna frowned in rethought.

“So if you’re Princess Anna, that will make that princess over there, Princess Elsa of the Northuldra Tribe. The other heir.”

Anna turned to meet the older girl’s wary gaze but the girl looked away.

“Erm… hi?” Anna began. The demure profile didn’t let up in the slightest.

“I’ve been trying to coax a word or two from her for a while now. Perhaps you’ll have more luck.”

But a loud clap caught their attention instead. Anna stared at the assembled Servitors, joined by her own, who formed a circle around them. Twelve… no thirteen. The one who had clapped had a mask the shape of a snarling reptile, tattooed in stylised flames. The man stabbed a pointing hand to her left, where Hans stood grinning. The pointed hand clenched, then flared out.

“What does he want?” Anna whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

Hans smiled reflexively.

“A demonstration.”

The boy's snow silk shirt sleeves shimmered as his arms spread before him. Magic flickered in the air, ice crystals blooming and tracing arcane sigils. A shard of ice concentrated between his outstretched hands, first growing into a sliver, then an icicle. The air rushed as the prince’s power sucked in the moisture in the air to forge a slender blade of ice. As it formed, his left hand cupped around a sudden swirl of ice fractals that collected into an ornate hilt. Grasping the glistening hilt, Hans brandished his ice sword exactly how Anna imagined the Flameguards would. 

“Woah,” she mouthed, glancing sideways at the other princess who’d been staring at Hans too. When she noticed Anna looking, she turned a faint pink and turned away again.

A second loud clap brought Anna back to the ritual and Anna found the same imperious gestures being leveled at her now.

“Oh, me? Oh. Ok. Erm…”

With a self-conscious peek at Hans, who had lowered his sword and was now peering at her with polite interest, she raised her hands and cleared her throat.

“Okay, I’m doing it now.” With a jaunty tilt of her chin, Anna shaped her hands vaguely in the air, trying not to feel like an idiot. But the familiar tingle of her power took over. Trickling along her spine, the power of winter coursed into her arms and pooled into her hands. Wintry winds nuzzled her fingers before racing to a spot three paces before her. Circling excitedly, a flurry of snowflakes danced in a wide circuit, a giant globe of snow swelling within. Then another speeding breath of arctic snow, tighter and smaller, above the first. Then a third, higher and narrower still. In moments, the triple tiers of snow circles built a little tower of giant snowballs. Even as the last of her strength ebbed from her small body, Anna managed a grin.

“If anyone has some sticks and stones, maybe even a carrot, we could have a snowman.”

Hans clapped. “Impressive, your Royal Highness.”

Anna curtsied shyly, trying not to wobble.

A much sharper clap drew the heirs’ attention to the mute leader of the Servitors. Without even waiting for Lizard Mask to gesture, Anna and Hans turned to watch Elsa who was gripping her hands so tightly, they turned bloodless.

“I won’t do it,” Princess Elsa declared, shaking her head resolutely. “I- I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Eyes widening, Anna glanced sideways at Lizard Mask and saw him jab the air more forcefully.

“Perhaps, it’d be better to comply, Princess Elsa,” Hans suggested.

“Don’t- don’t make me. I don’t want to! You can’t make me!”

There was another angry clap, only this time, the angry jabs were directed to Anna and Hans before stabbing viciously at the shrinking Elsa.

“What does he-” Anna began, but Hans was already striding purposefully towards Elsa, his sword rising. 

“Forgive me, Princess Elsa, but we all have our duties. If you will not carry out yours-”

Anna blocked his path, her mouth gaping in shock.

“What are you doing? You’re not-”

Hans’ innocent smile sent a chill to her heart.

“You’re in the way, Princess Anna. We must persuade Princess Elsa to do her duty.”

“You can’t just force people to do what you want!”

Then the sword plunged towards her- or it would have had a sudden arctic blast not shoved her aside at the last second.

“Leave us alone!” Anna heard Elsa scream, ice crystals swirling madly around one outstretched arm.

Even Hans’ smile faltered, but he continued to advance on Elsa, his body poised to strike.

“Will you dance, your Highness?”

“Stay away!”

Anna lifted herself to her feet against her snowball tower and touched the smallest snowball. As if catapulted, the snowball flung itself towards Hans. To Anna’s disbelief, the prince spun in a low crouch and sliced her snowball into neat halves. 

He sneered at the crumbling snow. How had she ever found him handsome? 

“There’s no need to be jealous, Princess Anna. I will dance with you too, but this dance is for Princess Elsa.”

Anna was barely paying attention to him. With a tiny frown, Hans turned to see what Anna was staring at so wide-eyed.

“No- No, no, no-” Elsa babbled as a swarm of ice crystals seethed around her. She gripped her dress as if she clung for her life- no more than that- 

“I can’t! Nhgh! I can’t hold it back!”

-she'd be holding on for all of their lives.

Anna had just enough time to throw herself behind her decapitated snowman and press her hand to it. Coruscant arcs of blue scythed the air even as she felt death slam into her headless snowman. Magic rippled from her hand, binding the snow together even as the wild ice magic tore at it. Loud moans made her turn back, and she gave a terrified one of her own.

The Servitors were writhing in agony as clear ice spread from frozen wounds in their body, crystallising them into twisted sculptures of horror. An angry cry from Hans would have almost been satisfying if she hadn’t just felt more out-of-control ice magic sawing into her snow barrier. 

Anna’s panicked breath frosted before her.

* * *

“Okay, we’re dead,” Kristoff concluded several hundred miles away from the palace in his and Sven's hiding place. Sven nudged him reproachfully, but just barely. The last carrot had been a long while ago, and the adrenaline was draining out of him with the last of his young reindeer strength. Then there was the ever-thickening scent of hungry wolves.

“We’ve had a good run.” The boy paused to gulp one of his possibly last gasps of air. “Most outcastes don’t live past their fifth winter… haa, haa... and we’ve had eleven… haa... but you’ve been… haa, haa... a good friend to me… haa... so...” He hugged his friend fiercely and blinked the tears away. “You go. I’ll hold them off.”

Sven pulled away with a shocked grunt.

“It’s gotta be you! You’re faster! You’ve got a shot at outpacing them… with a little head start.”

Sven stomped his hoof and shook his head vehemently.

“There’s no time to argue! The wolves-”

But Sven’s ear was already twitching. Kristoff’s face fell, and Sven knew he’d heard the crunch of snow too. Kristoff cast his gaze about for a stone or something, but Sven’s anxious grunt made him look up at the hint of white fur peeking out from over the outcrop of rock that sheltered their nook. A primordial chill ran down his spine as the fur extended down to reveal-

-a naked forehead and two upside-down blue eyes.

Kristoff screamed and Sven bellowed wildly until the head hang down more fully, and they realised it was a little boy quirking a dark brow at them.

“You guys ok?”

“Wha- who are you?”

Sven echoed the question.

“Me? I’m Jack Frost.” The boy grinned as a dozen wolf heads emerged to peer down with him at the frozen pair. “And these are my friends.”

“HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

* * *

An hour later, Kristoff was seated around a steam vent, a roasted drumstick in his hand.

“I was sure they were going to eat us,” he muttered to Sven who was blissfully tucking in to his third carrot.

“Oh, no, we much prefer Rock Ptarmigan,” confided the wolf-lady who’d overheard. Until forty minutes ago, she had been on all fours, loping through the forest along with a score of her pack, forest game in their mouths. 

Kristoff took a bite of his drumstick, then quickly went for another, and another.

“Woah- slow down.” Jack was looking up at him from beside the firepit with a grin. “When’s the last time you ate?”

Kristoff swallowed and wiped the grease from his mouth. 

“Nothing decent in weeks,” he admitted. He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I’m not so good with the hunting. I usually trade wild herbs and stuff with other outcastes, but it’s like they’ve all disappeared. I thought-” Kristoff eyed the wolf-lady who was tenderly feeding a pup that hadn’t transformed, and swallowed the rest of his sentence.

“It’s not the wolf-people, nor even real wolves,” Jack answered, catching his glance, “it’s the Flameguards. I’ve seen them. They’ve been riding into the Wild Ways; attacking outcastes.”

Sven snorted as Kristoff felt a surge of anger boil over.

“This again? When we’re not even on their precious Summer Ways?”

“People act stupidly when they’re scared,” the wolf-lady murmured as she tore off another drumstick and handed it to Kristoff who thanked her shyly. “The howl is that the King never returned from Ahtohallan, and the heirs this time are mere pups themselves.”

Jack playfully wrestled the pup for his bone, then laughed as the little wolf-boy reversed course and went for his unguarded staff. 

“Jamie! Come back here, you little scamp!” 

“Look who’s talking,” the wolf-lady quipped with a smile.

Jack laughed harder then leapt on a sudden gust, racing after the fleeing pup. Sven whined enviously and Kristoff could relate. They’d seen Jack riding the winds ahead of the pack on the way to the den.

“He’s not wolf-folk, but the spirits have blessed him with special gifts of his own,” the wolf-lady remarked, catching Kristoff’s look. “I’m guessing your story’s much the same?”

Kristoff looked at her blankly. The wolf-lady studied him thoughtfully.

“You don’t survive very long on the Wild Ways without some special talents of your own.”

Kristoff shrugged, then cast his gaze down and sighed.

“I mean… I have Sven. He helps to sniff out the useful roots and any danger.”

“And how did you meet Sven?”

Kristoff stared listlessly into the fire.

“He belonged to my parents’ herd. They said he was sickly anyway, and that no one should have to die alone. Not even outcastes.” Kristoff kept his eyes wide open, in case the wolf-lady thought he was crying. “I showed them though. Six winters on the Wild Ways and counting.”

The wolf-lady nudged his knee affectionately.

“Good for you. And, well, it’s plain to see that you’re an animal-speaker. Reindeer-speaker, in your case.”

Kristoff and Sven looked at each other and shrugged.

“I just sorta know what he’s thinking.”

Sven grunted the same.

The wolf-lady laughed.

“Well, you boys are welcome to stay here for as long as you like.”

“But I don’t have anything to give you.”

She rose and grinned down at him.

“That’s right, you don’t know. Well, you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“What?”

And that was when a snowball hit him in the face.

* * *

“Ooh… I’m going to get you, Anna,” Elsa announced as she wiped the snow from her face.

Anna squeaked and ducked back down behind her snow fort. Her giggles died as she caught Elsa’s reflection in an ice pillar. A cart-sized ice battering ram crystalised out of thin air. 

The snow fort exploded into a mini blizzard, leaving Anna spreadeagled on the clear floor.

“Siege weapons are cheating,” she growled, but broke into a fresh bout of giggles. Elsa had to hide her own behind a hand and she bent down to offer Anna the other. 

Anna got to her feet, smiling as she dusted off the snow from her head and shoulders, Elsa helping her. Anna could almost pretend she couldn’t see the pinch of worry on the older princess’ face. 

How many years had it been? How many snow silk and ice-embroidered gowns traded for bigger ones? Heck, in the years that had followed since the incident, how many had Anna and Elsa made with their own magic, for future heirs to inherit? Elsa had already reached her womanhood, and was stunning even in her everyday dress; a spring one that flowed airily down an elegant frame that was still impossibly curvy. There were snow slopes that appeared middling by comparison. At least Anna had a lot more freckles. Lots of freckles. They were a sign of beauty. Weren’t they?

“Hey...” Anna began, thinking quickly on her feet, “do you want to build a snowman?”

Elsa pressed her lips in a demure smile.

“It’s almost time for your birthday dinner, and we’ll be late if we don’t go and change for that now.”

“Oh- I don’t want to go for some stupid birthday dinner. The Elder will be there. And Hans! Urgh! Can you imagine? Oh, Princess Anna, please accept my heartfelt felicitations while I sharpen daggers with my smile,” Anna affected with a florid bow.

Elsa tittered but bit her lip and forced some contriteness into her brows.

“We shouldn’t mock. It’s my fault he’s the way he is.”

Anna took a sober breath and clasped Elsa’s hands in hers.

“He was a dick even before you turned his dick and other parts of him to living ice, Elsa.”

“Anna!”

“Well, he was! And he can fence just fine now. We were all ‘treated’ to his eighteenth birthday one-hundred-ways-I-want-to-stab-you weapons exhibition.”

“It’s impressive, really, how well he commands the ice in his arms and legs.”

“Of course, he still has to pee sitting down.”

_“Anna!”_

“What? I hear it’s all ice down there.”

Elsa pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks. Anna rolled her eyes.

“You’d think he didn’t do a little thing like try to kill you-”

“Not kill. Just... encourage me to do what the Servitors wanted us to do.”

“With a sword. That’s a really important detail. And he threatened to hurt me with it once he was done hurting you. That’s another really important detail.”

Elsa gently grasped Anna’s shoulders.

“He’s changed.”

Anna deadpanned.

“You don’t really believe that.”

Elsa steered her gaze away.

“Well… we’ve all changed, haven’t we? Especially now... You’re finally eighteen...”

There it was. Anna sighed and held Elsa’s pleasantly warm cheeks.

“Listen. I’ve known this was coming for ten years. And if Hans wasn’t a megalomaniac sociopath, he’d have known it too. He probably does, deep inside that twisted, wretched mind of his.”

“Glad to see you’re not holding a grudge.”

“The point is,” Anna began again, “you’re the Queen. You’ll be the one to reach the Heart of Ahtohallan. To hear the Sovereign Counsel. To claim the High Frost Crown. There was never anyone else who could have done it. Not me. Not Hans. Just you. So stop feeling sorry for us and just do it.” 

“But you’ll die.”

Anna wiped away the tears that were slipping freely down Elsa’s lovely cheekbones. For Fifth’s sake, she even cried prettily.

“I’m okay with that. I’ve had ten years to be okay with that. Hans has had even longer. Besides, we won’t really be dead. We’ll live forever in Ahtohallan.”

“Frozen.”

“But alive. Forever. And you can visit us. Talk to us. And- I know you’re going to do it anyway, but I still have to say this- spare yourself a visit to Hans. He really hasn’t changed at all. Except, possibly, to get worse.”

“You’re too hard on him.” 

“I’m not judging him for anything he didn’t do to himself. No one turned his heart to ice.”

Elsa hugged Anna close.

“He didn’t have you to keep him sane and loved for ten good years.”

Anna allowed herself some tears as she tried to burn the feeling of Elsa’s hugs into her memory for eternity. 

“Hey, we did that together.”

“I love you, Sister.”

“Now you’re going to make me cry.”

They both laughed.

“I love you too.”

* * *

The best bonds were the ones you could enjoy naked. It was a wolf-folk saying, but it was true for other outcastes too, Kristoff figured as he sank blissfully into the hot spring. 

“I’m just surprised Sven thinks so too,” Jack remarked as he fended off Jamie’s tickle attack. 

Kristoff glanced lazily at his reindeer who had his magnificent antlers carefully wrapped in a dozen towels, a carrot hanging casually out of the corner of his mouth.

"He’s always been chill. Is it okay for you to bring your staff, though?"

Jack counterattacked Jamie for mere minutes before he turned back into a wolf, yipping madly as he thrashed in the water. Jack laughed and twirled his staff, tapping a patch of water into ice. Jamie latched on immediately and clawed himself up. Jack winked at his audience.

“My staff’s pretty chill too.”

Kristoff groaned, then groaned even louder as wolf-Jamie decided to dry himself by shaking himself vigorously, splattering them all with lukewarm spring water.

“Augh! Jamie!”

Later, as they dressed by a privacy boulder, Kristoff deflated with a gruff grunt.

Jack lowered his shirt and looked over with a wry smile.

“What is it now, grumpy bear?” 

“I have to make another run to the crossroads.”

Jamie’s brown eyes lit up, and he tried to wag his tail in his human form, making Sven and Jack bellow with laughter.

“Ooh! Can I come? Please, please, please! Can I come? Kristoff, can I come?”

Kristoff scowled at the youth and pulled his slate-gray woollen overshirt over his broad body, which, with the fine gold hairs that covered his rugged torso, did look a bit like a bear's.

“Mrs. Bennett will have my head- and I’d deserve it. Jamie-” he grunted as he got his head through, “these people are dangerous. These kingdom-folk think nothing of hunting folks like us. One less outcaste is one better. That’s what folks like them think.” 

Jamie hung his head and Jack and Sven both glared meaningfully at Kristoff. 

_‘What? But I-’_ Kristoff mouthed, then he sent his eyes into a great roll and leaned forward to pat the youth awkwardly on his shoulder.

“But I’ll look to see if they have another book on the Abominable Snowman, or something.”

Jamie looked up, eyes sparkling as he all but tried to climb up the massive man.

“Will you? I’d really love that. Oh, Kristoff, I really would!”

Even Kristoff had to laugh, and he ruffled Jamie’s brown hair affectionately.

“Okay, okay! Now put some clothes on, pup!” he ordered with a fond smack on the wolf-boy’s bottom. Jamie yipped and scrambled to obey.

Sven gave him a sly grin. Kristoff held up a warning finger.

“Now don’t you start!”

The reindeer snorted delicately and Jack shrugged.

“I don’t have much experience of dads, but I gotta say... you certainly don’t look like a bad one.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to be a dad!” Kristoff protested, blushing. “Bad enough Mrs Bennett has been arranging paired hunts with some of the girls...”

“Don’t look at me dude,” Jack grinned toothily, “I wasn’t the one who taught all the pups to read-”

“It’s the one thing my parents were good for.”

“-and for bringing back treats when you can-”

“They’re cheap!”

“-and making them toys every time you puppysit?”

“You try managing a den-full of howlers without a rattle-stick.”

Jack leaned back against the boulder and shook his head ruefully.

“You’re lucky Sophie is still too young and Jamie’s showed more interest in books so far. Give it a few years and Mrs Bennett will have you for a son-in-law herself, one way or another.”

Kristoff looked faintly ill, and Jamie frowned.

“Wait, what else would I be interested in?”

Jack patted him kindly and turned back to Kristoff.

“Like Sven said, you’d make a good dad, and the pack can see that.”

“You don’t know Sven said that.”

But Sven and Jack were already high-fiving. 

“Well, what about you?” Kristoff crossed his arms mulishly. “You play with the pups a lot, too! With your enchanted snowballs and all.”

Jack smirked and called streams of snow crystals to coalesce in the palm of his hand. “What enchanted snowball? Oh, you mean this enchanted snowball?”

Jamie rose excitedly while Kristoff backed away, hands raised.

“Oh no you don’t! Jack! I’ve got trades to make, and you’re not making me late. _Again._ ”

But Jamie was already howling for the other guys.

“Snowball fight!” Jack yelled, hitting Kristoff right in the face.

“I’m going to kill-” But the blue lights were already sparkling before his eyes.

The hot needle of annoyance fell free from Kristoff’s mind and a smile teased its way to the corners of his mouth. A fresh impulse made him scoop up the snow that had magically covered the bare rock and lob it at Jack, who barked a laugh and slipped away on a speeding gust. Then a giggle to his left made Kristoff turn and promptly get another snowball to the face. 

“I’m going to get you, Jamie!” he hollered as Jamie’s cackling retreated with the wolf-boy behind some cover.

By then, a half-dozen young males of the pack had bounded over, all grinning eagerly.

“Snowball fight!”

“Alright!”

“Who’s on my team?”

“Free-for-all!”

Forty minutes later, Kristoff lounged contentedly in the snow with the other guys draped around Sven and him- Jamie resting his face on Kristoff’s stomach.

No one noticed that Jack was nowhere to be seen. A safe distance away, Mrs Bennett surveyed the carnage with a shake of her head, though she smiled indulgently.

“You didn’t tell them,” she whispered to Jack who sat on a nearby cottonwood branch, a look of profound sadness eclipsing his earlier bright humour. “It’s the youngest princess’ eighteenth birthday today. You’re running out of time.”

“I know.”

Mrs Bennett glanced down at her son, who was angling for a head rub with a soft bump against Kristoff’s hand perched just above him. She heard Kristoff chuckle and oblige.

“Jamie and the others will understand. The pack understands about the Man in the Moon and his visions. But Kristoff…”

“I know.”

The sound of his voice was like a lost breeze in the vast wilderness of the arctic tundra. A single howl echoing in the loneliness of an edgeless night. It had been a while since Jack had sounded like that. Not since he’d informally joined the pack, in fact. Not since he had told their hunting party that he had no family. No memories. Nothing at all- but for his staff and his magic. And perhaps just one other thing the moon had given him. His name.

Jack Frost.

A name that echoed with the royal lineage so clearly, she hadn’t been sure if it would’ve been better to let the tundra claim him.

But then he touched them with his magic, hoping they would give him a home. Even then she’d known he would leave them someday. Last winter, when he’d woken up in a sweat and clung to her fur shaking like a newborn pup, babbling about the moon hurling him into a heart of ice, she’d nodded to herself. 

_‘It’s time,’_ she had told herself while licking him soothingly, _‘it’s time.’_

“I don’t have to go,” Jack murmured now, almost wistfully.

“I know,” she answered, not looking at him.

But he would.

* * *

**-TBC-**


	2. The Forgotten Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Princess Anna's eighteenth birthday rushes to a climactic end. An uninvited guest and a forcibly invited one change the rules of the game, and everyone has to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any reference to alcohol is, respectfully, not an endorsement of drinking, which I am firmly against.
> 
> Enjoy if you can, and apologies for any offence given.

“Ooooh… I don’t think I should,” Anna moaned as the music started. 

“You’ll be fine,” Elsa whispered back through the ice-embroidered snow curtain as the Court, in all their glittering finery, gossiped intently in the fretted galleries above. “You’ve practised for weeks.”

“Which is weeks’ worth of evidence why I shouldn’t do this!”

Anna felt a little push in the small of her back and she tottered a few steps forward into the crystal quartz amphitheater. Silence spread like a warm embarrassing puddle around her, and Anna was calculating the quickest route from the nearest window to the stables. Of course, she didn’t know where the stables were, but sometimes you had to follow your nose.

That’s when she heard the singing. Not words, but pure notes. Just enough for her to hear. Like the tincture of sunlight that set the horizon aglow. Only, it wasn’t the sun, it was Elsa. The preening Court twinkled distantly above, but Elsa’s voice was the precious comfort of the Arctic sun even when it dipped beyond sight. Her crepuscular gold all that mattered, all that held back the Pitch Black. It could surely hold back the terror of the gaudy puffins that puffed and strutted in the balconies above. 

Elsa’s melody stirred memory, and Anna’s fingers came alive with magic, streaming with pure snow that flurried into the likeness of a pair of lovers, then another, and another. Panic struck as one snow gentleman cracked and broke apart, obliterating the skirt of his gentlelady. Some nobles gasped as if Anna had taken out a palace pillar, but Elsa’s voice remained with her, a patient promise that all would be fine. With a breath, Anna pushed her hand out and reformed the couple, her magic gushing out of her in glistening ribbons, spinning lover after lover, until she stood in the middle of a grand ball, the attending gentlemen and gentleladies sparkling elegantly all around her. Catching her breath, Anna hesitated, but Elsa’s voice soared, and something in her answered.

“I’ve been staring into space,

Searching for a friendly face.

Waiting for someday, somehow

When you’ll take my hand and bow.”

Motes of light flared in ice crystals as the snow gentlemen came to life and bowed to their partners, while the snow gentleladies sank into deep curtsies. An appreciative murmur echoed above but Anna only heard their song as the snow partners arced artfully to the music, stepping and swirling with the finesse of practised masters.

“I’ve known it since I learned

That wishing stars always burn

The brightest in the dark.

For even the faintest spark,

“Is a star in our constellation,

Every sparkle a connection,

And this moment we’re apart,

Grows shorter when we start

“Tracing the stars-

Tracing the stars-

Tracing the _stars-_ ”

Anna was unable to hit the last transcendent note with quite as much power that Elsa effortlessly lifted to the very galleries.

At least her ball hadn’t wobbled. She just had to hang in there to the end.

“Chasing our map in the sky,

No longer afraid, you and I,

That we’re lost and never found.

Love is too profound.

“Our’s a story still foretold,

Love I’m yearning to behold.

A promise always true,

One worth waiting for- you!”

“Like every lady in her lonely tower,

Like every lord in his seat of power,

Even every farmer tending his field,

Or every warrior bearing her shield is

“Tracing the stars-

Tracing the stars-

Tracing the stars!

“For all of the craftsman’s skill,

Or the seer’s secrets spilled,

Yes, even the wild ones will be-

“Tracing the stars!”

Scores of dancers whirled in unison to the finale and locked precisely into place. Breathless, Anna curtsied, and her court of snow people dipped along with her to thunderous applause. She rose, turning triumphantly to the diaphanous image of Elsa beaming at her through the curtain veil. 

Bells were sounded, and the nobles cheered. Anna strode back into the antechamber, relinquishing her hold on her snow people. As they crumbled into glimmering heaps, Elsa took Anna’s hands in hers.

“You did it. I knew you would.”

Anna blushed shyly.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Elsa shook her head, a gentle smile nestled on her lips.

“No, that was all you.”

“Though you could have gone a little easy on the belting.”

Elsa laughed.

“I got carried away,” she admitted with a rueful grin, then brightened. “Come on! The Court is waiting for you. There’s cake and it’s-”

“-Chocolate!” they finished together and grinned.

* * *

Servants were already waiting to escort them to the Hall of Bright Morn. Anna fussed with her dress, trying to straighten out a couple of stubborn wrinkles with her magic. Elsa’s was still as immaculate as always as she glided serenely ahead. They passed through so many corridors and up so many flights of stairs, that when the doors of the antechamber finally yielded to their entrance, the nobles had already poured into the hall from the adjoining balconies to welcome the princesses with deep bows and curtsies. Anna’s brow creased when she saw who led the assembly. Hans rose with only a slightly mocking smile.

“My heartfelt felicitations, Princess Anna, on your eighteenth birthday. The spirits’ blessings on you this day and forever more.”

“Forever more!” the Court chorused, Elsa joining in just a little offbeat.

“Forsooth! One is delighted by your felicitations, Prince Hans,” Anna drawled, ignoring Elsa’s whispered urging to be nice. She smiled much more warmly at the rest of the Court. “Thank you everyone!” 

The Elder, standing on a crystal dais by the seats of honour, spread his arms wide as if he embraced the air. Anna couldn’t resist a wide-eyed sideways glance at Elsa who nudged her.

“We of the Council of Heirs recognise Princess Anna of the Arendelle Tribe. Hail, Princess Anna!”

The Court paid tribute to her once more.

"Hail, Princess Anna."

With a half-frantic look at Elsa, Anna folded her hands decorously before her waist and tried a deep, regal voice.

"Please rise."

As the Court straightened, the Elder gestured to the masked Servitors standing by one of the balcony entrances.

Anna and Elsa traded gleeful glances. Cake!

But the tousled blond head of a livid captive killed Anna’s smile. The massive man in a leather vest was frogmarched before the Court by two armoured Flameguards, flanked by two masked Servitors who cradled heavy cudgels in their heavy gloves. A wave of bewilderment from the Court fell silent as the Elder clapped his hand once. Horrified, Anna noticed the bruises on his face and the brutal gag in his mouth. She mutely accepted the blazing anger in his brown eyes.

“With Princess Anna coming of age and now recognised by the Council,” the Elder began, “the Pilgrimage may commence.”

Anna felt a tug in her heart, but she steeled it.

“In accordance with our laws, King Nicholas of the North Tribe ventured to the Heart of Ahtohallan to replace the High Frost Crown and join the Vigil of the Ancient Sovereigns ten years ago. From the beginning of our laws, the Council of Heirs has fulfilled our sacred duty, discovering and nurturing every generation of those born to the sixty-four tribes with the Royal Gift- the Touch of Frost- so that when the need arises, we may send these heirs on a pilgrimage to the sacred land, where they may seek the Sovereign Counsel from the Vigil and retrieve the High Frost Crown.”

Elsa stepped out from behind Anna and even Hans fell into place beside her without comment.

“As our forebears have done before us, before the empty throne, we call upon the heirs to embark on the Pilgrimage and restore to us a King or Queen, as the spirits will. As is the holy tradition, we pledge a company of twelve of our finest warriors, and a thirteenth, a guide. They shall escort you on a path swift and true, spirits willing. Much depends on it, and know that the Kingdom languishes in wait for your return.”

Hans swept into a bow, a picture of unimpeachable sincerity.

“It shall be my duty and honour.”

“As it shall be mine,” Elsa pledged with a curtsy, Anna hastily following suit, though she was first to rise.

“But surely we can untie this… gentleman? And why is he injured?”

The mutterings of the Court made the Elder glance about with what in a lesser man may have seemed to be discomfort.

“Princess Anna, he is no gentleman but an outcaste captured in the wild. We would have preferred to have chosen one from civilisation, but this one, our Seers tell us, is the greatest of guides in all the land. The spirits, we are told, will name no other.”

“Then he is a dear companion, and should not be so insulted,” Hans protested, drawing a suspicious look from Anna.

“At the very least, free his bonds,” Elsa urged, moving closer to Anna.

“If it pleases your Highness,” the Flameguard to the outcaste’s right began with a low bow without relinquishing his tight grip, “the man is a savage. He is safer bound.”

“Were you going to have him bound all the way to Ahtohallan?” Hans demanded and Anna quirked a brow. But she held her tongue and turned to the bound man instead.

“I am sure he poses no danger to the Court...” she assured, a pleading look in her eyes as she caught his. His copper-gold brows drew together in a scowl, but he looked away and deflated a little, giving her the barest hint of a nod.

“I’m afraid this will not be permissible,” a lofty voice dictated from the dais. Anna gnashed her teeth and regarded the Elder with a barely veiled glare.

“The safety of the Court is the Council’s responsibility,” the Elder declared. “In the absence of an _ascended_ Sovereign,” he added with awful emphasis, “the Council bears the burden of making all such decisions-”

“Then let’s get rid of the stinking Council!”

Anna gasped. Did she say that out loud? She stole a glance at Elsa, but the look of astonishment on _her_ face was directed upward. Anna turned along that gaze and gasped again.

Billowing in the wind, swirling unruly hair as bright as frost in moonlight, a shepherd boy hung from the ice crystal chain of a chandelier. Brandishing his crooked staff like a spear, he spat disdainfully into the noble crowd, prompting scandalised exclamations and a mild panic as some noble ladies fainted. 

“Last chance, old man. Untie him or you’ll regret it.”

A Servitor with the mask of a snarling white bear stomped forward, his cudgel gesticulating imperiously from where he stood.

 _Come down this instant-_ it seemed to say.

The shepherd boy pretended to think, his cape billowing behind him. Then, he smiled sweetly for the guard.

“No, thanks!”

“Insolent cur!” a Flameguard bellowed, jabbing a gauntleted finger impotently at the intruder. 

The boy made a face.

“Urgh! No. You definitely don’t want a dog up here. It'd definitely pee on all of you. Actually, y’know what? Not a bad idea...”

“Scandalous!”

“For shame!”

“Oooh!”

“Lady Franz!”

“What will it be, old man?” the boy demanded, his staff-wielding hand hovering over the buttons of his breeches.

All eyes turned to the Elder who shook, mottled with rage.

“Seize him!”

“At once, my lord!” the Flameguards chorused, bowing crisply alongside the Servitors. They advanced in formation towards the chandelier and glared up at the intruder. 

The nobles were clearly unimpressed.

“Is that the best you can do?”

“What are the guards doing?”

“The Council must not allow us to be peed on!”

The Elder was growing dangerously red.

“Gentlemen, please...” Hans intervened, “I’m sure we can handle this like… well… gentlemen.”

Anna rolled her eyes and began signalling to Elsa to make an ice umbrella. 

The shepherd boy regarded Hans with interest.

“And the gentlemanly thing to do, good sir,” Hans continued, “would be to join us down here and properly introduce yourself.”

“Prince… Hans, was it?”

Hans inclined his head regally and the shepherd boy flashed him a roguish grin.

“I’m not sure your friends down there look like they want to be very gentlemanly to me,” he pointed out, wiggling his toes at the Flameguards and Servitors below baring their teeth and painted fangs at him.

Hans swept his arm across his chest in a graceful bow.

“I’m afraid, I really must in- _sist!_ ”

His hand lashed out and darts of ice pierced the air in a sharp whistle. The shepherd boy’s blue eyes widened, but he swung his staff up in a whirl of icy dust and snow. Snow and ice exploded with a mini clap of thunder. Anna lurched forward and felt Elsa move too. As if he weighed nothing at all, the shepherd boy surfed on the air and landed on the bowl of the chandelier, the crystal drops tinkling wildly as he teetered and wobbled upon the fragile work of art.

“Woah- haha!” the shepherd boy stuck his arms and staff out, balancing on one leg. When he held it for two seconds, he flashed them a smirk, folding his other leg like a stork and bending his staff-arm to tap the crook of his staff against the back of his head. “Now, that wasn’t very gentlemanly either, was it?”

The guards underneath the chandelier gaped in shock as the powder snow that had misted down on them melted on their faces. The thunderstruck look on Han’s face would have entertained Anna for weeks, had she not been so stunned herself.

“Jack!” a voice hollered, and they all turned to see the bound outcaste, somehow having undone his gag, looking as stricken as any of them. “What’re you doing?”

Jack’s brows drooped.

“Dude. You’re literally trussed up for the spit. What do you _think_ I’m doing, Kristoff?”

“But they’ve seen your- They- They’re never going to let you leave here now!” Kristoff cried, anguished.

Jack gave him a hooked smile and swept his gaze across the room, a dozen emotions flickering in his eyes.

“Yeah, well, maybe this is where I was always going to end up.”

“You have the Royal Gift?”

Anna blinked in surprise and turned to see Elsa stepping out in front of all of them, staring directly at Jack. For once, Elsa seemed unconcerned with the wary looks sent her way.

“You have the Touch of Frost?”

Jack regathered his focus on the platinum blond weave of her braid and the knot of sorrow of her brows.

“I-”

The Elder cut him off.

“Preposterous!” he boomed, “Only members of the noble tribes, the Fifth Caste, are bestowed with the Royal Gift! He is a usurper!”

A burst of frosted patterns traced around Hans as he pulled twin crossbows out of the air. He aimed one at Jack, but suddenly whipped the other at Kristoff. Kristoff jolted, but he was still helplessly bound.

“Kristoff!” Jack yelled just as Hans fired the crossbow- at him! His feet moved faster than his brain, and Jack jumped. Up his staff shot, hooking the column of the chandelier, his shock turning quickly to anger. 

“What are you doing!” Anna screamed, stomping furiously between Hans’ crossbow and Kristoff.

Hans regarded her coolly.

“Impersonating an heir to the throne is treason, Princess Anna.” 

“I’ve- had- ENOUGH!” 

Hans turned too late. Jack leapt down, his staff ripping the air with a crash of winter. Hans could only raise one arm before the blast swallowed him and knocked Anna off her feet. Servitors rushed to their aid, but Jack spun his staff in a sunburst of ice, forcing them back. The Elder paled. Looming where Hans stood just moments ago was a spiky tomb of ice. He shot a desperate look at the last heir standing.

“Princess Elsa!” he urged. Anna clambered against something firm and glared at the old man with disgust.

“ _You’re_ supposed to protect _us!_ ”

“Er…”

Anna looked at what she was holding and blushed a flaming red. The outcaste named Kristoff was staring pointedly at her hand that was gripping his pec. She released it like it was hot iron.

“S-sorry! Oh! Elsa, wait!”

But Elsa was already clenching her fist and surging forward. Her arms flung out, hands turning in delicate gestures. A halo of frozen crystals, concentric rings of glittering diamond ice, circled into a great design that covered the height of the hall. 

Jack looked over the massive shield, the bloom of his hydrangea-blue eyes sparkling with admiration. 

“Got to give it to her,” he breathed appreciatively, but his eyes hardened as they looked past the barrier to see Kristoff bound and on his knees before the other princess.

He clutched his staff close to his chest, currents of freezing magic fizzing in wild arcs around him. A feral cry tore out of him and he threw his arms back. Furious streaks of ice shards erupted from his staff. Bounding jaggedly, the bolts of blue lightning rent the air, slamming into Elsa’s filigree-like shield.

“Ungh!” Elsa shielded her face as broken shards of ice burst out in violent sprays where the serrated torrents shredded away at her Mandala of the Diamond Eternal. The piercing screech of sawing ice forced Anna to cover her ears, Kristoff grunting in pain behind her. Nobles cowered towards the crystal dais, the weaponless Flameguards nearby closing ranks around them. 

Elsa spread her hands out once more, slender fingers shaping magical sigils like the dance of snowflakes amongst the winter stars. Plumes of sublimated ice poured out of the mandala like the tails of arctic foxes, unraveling themselves into shimmering white ribbons that wove gracefully around the churning barrage, eclipsing their light. 

Feeling his grip on his ice bolts loosen, Jack’s dark brows rose in surprise, but he flashed her a hooked smile. 

Just then, the frozen tomb of Hans cracked, and cracked again. Anna had just enough time to thrust her hands up and raise a wall of snow. The ice prison groaned and wrenched open, crashing into Anna's racing snow barrier. The barrier exploded. Anna grabbed Kristoff and pushed him to the ground just as three giant icicles gored the shattered wall, an avalanche of snow burying them completely.

Hans shrugged off glistening slivers from his shoulders as he hefted a crossbow almost as large as he was, drawn and ready to fire. And it had only one target. 

The missile punched through the air, smashing past a too-narrow gap in Elsa’s mandala and plunging right into Jack’s stomach.

Or it should have.

The giant arrow passed cleanly through Jack, as if he were made of misted breath in the chill of winter. The shepherd boy gasped sharply, but his accusatory glare revealed only his annoyance just as the Flameguards behind him cried out and dove out of the way, along with some silent Servitors. A thunderous crash prompted a great hulk to pop out of the snow mound, a princess hanging on to its bulk.

“Woah! Okay! Er…” Anna steadied herself and released her hold.

Kristoff blinked damp snow out of his eyes and searched Jack's solitary outline anxiously.

“He’s going to get himself killed!” 

“Who- _what_ is he?” Anna whispered, watching Jack surge with more power, forcing Elsa to lean in with more of hers.

“My brother,” Kristoff hissed, brown eyes shining with anger, “and he’s not supposed to be here. We’re not supposed anywhere _near_ you people.”

“Us people?” Anna repeated, an indignant rise in her voice. “Okay, I didn’t tie you up, and I’m not counting, but I think I saved you a couple of times.”

Kristoff rolled his eyes.

“Oh, well thanks. Thanks so much for saving me after I decided to get myself caught by your murderous Flameguards, and threatened by your murderous princes and their fancy magic crossbows!”

“Oh, get in line! I was eight when that psychopath threatened to chop my head off!”

Hans chucked his arbalest with a crash, and turned a steely gaze at Kristoff who was about to retort.

Jack caught his look.

“Leave him alone!” Jack roared as Hans pushed Anna aside and yanked a furious Kristoff to his feet. Elsa turned to see Anna angrily getting up as an ice-steel blade spun out from Han’s palm to slide sleekly against Kristoff’s throat. Jack felt his heart stop.

“Let him go, you brute!” Anna yelled, the snow by her feet swirling in a gathering snowspout.

“I mean him no harm, Princess,” Hans professed silkily, “but it seems our assailant cares for this boy, and Princess Elsa is having such a hard time with him.”

“We kidnapped his brother in the first place!” Anna snapped, the budding snowspout now whipping at their robes.

“She’s right.”

All eyes turned to Elsa who was flushed with the effort of battle. 

“Cut his bonds, Prince Hans.”

The Elder and the other council members stirred, the masked Servitors turning towards them, but the storm of magic in the Hall of Bright Morn was one wrong word away from consuming them all.

“Are you sure, my Lady?” Hans ventured with a tight smile. “It seems wiser to have our friend here persuade our unexpected guest to lay down his staff.”

Elsa nodded.

“That’s exactly what we’re doing. Cut the ropes.”

“Do it,” Anna ordered, willing the snowspout tighter.

Hans held his stance for a pregnant moment. Then, his sword hand slashed the air in three blinding fast strokes. Kristoff felt his bonds loosen and fall away. He couldn’t help the grunt of relief or the sheepish glance at Jack who seemed to mirror his relief with the sagging of his shoulders. With a grudging glance at Elsa, Jack grabbed his suspended staff and a pulse of blue ran through his grinding bolts. They shattered into fine dust. For a moment, the air shimmered in the sudden stunning silence, and the combatants looked uncertainly at one another.

“Princess Anna,” Hans began with a genteel smile, “perhaps you could undo your snowspout now?”

Anna returned the most saccharine smile she could manage.

“You first.”

Barking a laugh, Hans swept his hand back and his ice-steel sword cracked into half-a-dozen pieces, scattering onto the floor. Anna glanced at the ruined blade, then unclenched her fists. The loud hiss of rushing snow began to slow.

Elsa turned her attention back to Jack.

“I think we started on the wrong foot,” she began cautiously, the plumes of subliming ice dissipating, though her shield remained firm. “I am Elsa of the Northuldra Tribe. That’s Anna, beside your friend, of the Arendelle Tribe... and you already know Hans. He’s of the Westergaard Tribe. We are the heir presumptives to the throne of the Kingdom- the proof of which lies in the Royal Gift we all share- the Touch of Frost. And you have it too.”

She let it hang there, her ocean-blue eyes intent upon him. Looking discomfited, Jack glanced about the room as if he wanted to be somewhere else, but he looked straight at Elsa as he answered.

“My name is Jack Frost-”

There were gasps, Anna and Kristoff making two of them. They exchanged looks: Anna’s questioning, Kristoff’s frightened.

“-and I was raised by the wolf-folk. I guess you could say they’re _my_ tribe.”

There was a surge of muttering, but Elsa quelled them with the sound of her voice.

“Frost? It’s forbidden to take the name of the Crown, the Throne, and the Gift,” Elsa explained gently, “the High Frost Crown, the Frosted Throne, and the Touch of Frost are bound by the Frost, the ancient magic of our land that sustains our Kingdom. No man may claim the name, save the Sovereign.”

Jack shrugged.

“I didn’t pick it. The moon did.” Jack chewed his lip as if he wasn’t sure about the taste of the words he was about to say, “The Man in the Moon gave it to me.”

Whatever it was he was expecting, laughter wasn’t it. Shock flared in his eyes, and Kristoff glared at the chortling nobles.

“Man in the Moon?” Hans repeated, a mocking smile twisting on his lips.

Elsa bit her lip and looked down. Anna growled impatiently.

“Prince Hans, if you could endeavour to not _interrupt?_ Princess Elsa is trying to determine if a fourth heir has appeared!”

“Impossible!” the Elder interjected gravely. “The heirs all hail from the sixty-four tribes, and none of the tribes have reported losing any children in the past decades.”

“But his Gift is undeniable,” Elsa insisted, “I’ve never seen someone so gifted.”

“Apart from you,” Anna added beneath her breath, and Kristoff peered at her with interest.

“Nevertheless, to recognise someone of questionable lineage…” one Council member objected.

“What are you saying? Isn’t the Royal Gift a privilege that runs in noble bloodlines alone?” yet another countered.

“Royal Gift? What nonsense! He’s a bastard of the Wild Ways. That power of his is nothing more than outcaste witchcraft!”

Kristoff moved belligerently forward, but Anna held him back. Their eyes met and she shook her head. He caught the tightening of her jaw and glanced up along its line to see her own flushed anger. Raking his bangs back, he lowered his heel with a frustrated grunt. 

“I can attest to it,” Elsa spoke up, leveling a steady gaze at the Elder, “this is no witchcraft. This is the Royal Gift.”

He observed her with a superior look.

“You are gifted, Princess Elsa. But in my long service to the Crown, I have raised and judged more heirs than you’ve weathered sunless winters.” His eyes narrowed. “It isn’t always the gifted who are worthy.”

Elsa paled, but Anna swept forward like a wrathful blizzard.

“With all due respect, Honoured Elder, it is Ahtohallan that decides who is or isn’t worthy!”

A chorus of gasps was followed by a soft reproachful “Anna!” from Elsa.

Kristoff shook his head in disbelief.

“And she was stopping _me_ ,” he muttered to himself, though he couldn’t help a grin.

“BWAHAHAHAHA!”

Jack leaned against his staff, doubled over with his own amusement. When he finally straightened, he grinned at all the resentful looks directed at him.

“Alright, alright… there’s no need to get angry. It’s like the princess said: Ahtohallan decides. If you guys think an outcaste like me has no business walking alongside your princes and princesses in their fancy snow silk robes, I’ll ride the first breeze out of here... maybe even all the way to Ahtohallan…”

Shock rippled in the hall, but the Elder scoffed.

“Anyone foolish enough to attempt that is welcome to try.”

“Jack Fr- ah...” Elsa hesitated, then shook her head, “Jack. The way to Ahtohallan is perilous. The Wild Ways are treacherous and the ever-changing terrain defies the guidance of any map.”

“It’s even worse by air,” Jack confessed, “too many crosswinds. But I’ve seen it.” 

The assembled nobles stirred in mild panic.

“Y-you’ve been to Ahtohallan?” Elsa stammered. 

Jack threw his head back laughing, twirling his staff as he did. More than a few guards and nobles flinched.

“Not quite. Just close enough to see it. But I sort of know the way there. When it comes to trekking the Wild Ways, I know my way around. Maybe even better than Kristoff, right?” Jack asked, stretching to the side to catch his childhood friend’s attention.

Kristoff gave him a bored look. 

“Yeah, try trekking through the Wild Ways with a sled full of packages, then we’ll talk.”

Elsa dipped her head, her eyes dimming before the mental images that played in her mind.

“Even so, there are ancient guardians that guard the way to Ahtohallan. They let no one through, not even the heirs. Overcoming them is one of the trials an heir must face. The Unseen King of Zephyr, The Burnished King of Flame, The Titan King of Land, and The Unbroken King of Waves- the Four Great Spirit Kings that protect Ahtohallan and mete judgment on the unworthy.

“Past even that is Ahtohallan herself, a maze of ice and magic, of all that was, all that is, and all that will ever be. Only those with the Touch of Frost may enter, and only a true Sovereign may leave. Heirs not worthy enough to reach her Heart are frozen to living ice for all eternity, and even Kings and Queens return to her in time. In the heart of Ahtohallan, the Kings and Queens surrender their mortal bodies for undying ice, and take their place beside those who came before them in the Vigil of the Ancient Sovereigns,” Elsa finished reverently, raising her head to find Jack grinning nonchalantly at her.

“You’re a pretty good storyteller, Princess. You’re welcome to tell me bedtime stories anytime.”

“Insolent barbarian!”

“As if the Princess would join you in your bed!”

“Have you no honour!”

Elsa blushed, Anna fanned her cheeks, and Kristoff spread his arms out in protest.

“Oh, c’mon! He didn’t mean it like that! You _didn’t_ mean it like that, right?” 

Jack coughed and strolled idly across the Hall.

“The point is that you puffin puff nobles don’t have to get your lacy drawers in a twist. Go ahead! I won’t get in the way of your... _Pilgrimage_ . You get to Ahtohallan your way, I’ll get to Ahtohallan mine. But!” Jack spun and pointed his staff at Kristoff, making everyone, including Kristoff, jump. “He comes with me,” Jack continued with some steel, “He’s not some catch of the day you can haul in as you like. Just like someone did with me, you people left him to die on the Wild Ways when he was three. He owes you _nothing._ He belongs to the Wild Ways now, and you’re going to let him go.”

Kristoff looked down, avoiding the Court’s scrutiny while molten emotions churned within him.

“You will find that the Kingdom is not beholden to your demands,” Hans rebuffed, glancing meaningfully at the Flameguards and the Servitors behind Jack who immediately stirred.

Jack raised his staff-

“Stop!” Elsa shouted, making the guards and Jack pause, “I agree with Jack.”

Jack blinked. Hans managed an oily smile.

“Princess Elsa-”

But Elsa flicked her wrists, collapsing the filigree Mandala in a rain of sparkling dust. The court pressed together in a frantic huddle.

“The outcastes are not animals- and even animals are not brutalised this way,” Elsa noted, her gaze fixed pointedly on the terrible bruises on Kristoff. Anna nodded vigorously behind her. “He is free to go.”

“And on whose authority will that be?” the Elder demanded ominously. “You do not speak for the Kingdom yet, Princess Elsa. _I_ do.”

Elsa swallowed visibly but she glared unflinchingly at the old noble.

“Your _Council_ does,” she reminded him as his eyes darted to his fellow Council members who were giving him sidelong glances, “you are not King. You are, however, responsible for the safety of the Court- a duty which seems to have been ceded to us heirs. The seers may have divined this man’s importance, but whose order was it to bring him in from the Wild Ways in such a manner? Who effectively invited this invasion with such a thoughtless and barbaric act? Who will take responsibility for bringing this danger to our Kingdom?”

Anna applauded, and more than a few nobles couldn’t muster a reproving look.

“We should have a vote!” she declared. “Who’s in favour of letting Kristoff go?”

Anna’s hand shot up immediately, Elsa’s with a bit more dignity. There were even a few nobles, some shooting furious glances in the direction of the council and others looking down shamefaced. Anna’s face fell.

“And those not in favour?”

Some Council members raised their hands, as did the Elder after a moment’s wrestling with his pride, but apart from a couple of other nobles, the rest looked at each other helplessly.

“What? Not voting, Prince Hans?” Anna asked with thinly veiled contempt.

Hans bowed unctuously.

“I prefer to abstain.”

As if he had unleashed a floodgate, nobles rushed to spontaneous agreement.

“Yes, I’d like to abstain too!”

“Yes, I abstain too!”

“I abstain!”

“And I!”

Anna tallied the scores and beamed.

“That’s nine for and eight against, with the rest abstaining.”

The sudden breaking out of whispered discussion faded as Hans spoke up. 

“Respectfully, Princess Anna, I do believe only eight nobles voted for releasing the outcaste…”

It was Elsa who answered.

“No, nine- counting Jack’s vote.”

The agitated whispers trebled. 

Hans laughed hollowly.

“But Jack… Ha! _Frost_ , as august as his name is, is not a prince.”

“So an outcaste beat you in a contest of the Royal Gift?” Anna demanded, “Or would you like to prove us wrong in a one-on-one duel with him?”

Hans flushed briefly, but his calm smile was quick to return.

“Princess Anna, you put the question of this man’s freedom to the Court. No matter how gifted Jack is, he isn’t a prince of the Court.”

“Will our Kingdom be ruled by an outcaste?” Elsa demanded quietly. “Ahtohallan doesn’t just admit those who simply carry noble blood. It does, however, admit those with the Touch of Frost. As Jack’s pointed out, we can’t stop him from attempting the Trial of Ahtohallan. Who amongst us can be certain that Jack will never reach the Heart of Ahtohallan nor retrieve the High Frost Crown? Who here claims to speak for Ahtohallan?”

She looked from Hans to the Elder, an open challenge in her eyes. 

“If there’s even the slightest possibility that Jack is our King,” she continued, “we either recognise him as the long lost Prince Jack or acknowledge to the people that anyone, even an outcaste, may sit upon the Frosted Throne.” 

Kristoff could almost hear the gears turning in the minds of the nobles.

Let the people know… that even non-nobles could rule?

“Oh no, no, no!”

“Of course he’s a prince!”

“Yes, in fact, my poor great-grand-aunt was disowned generations ago to marry a commoner from the Water Caste. Perhaps this Jack is-”

“No, but, my great-grandfather was always a bit… partial to barmaids… perhaps he-”

“No, he may be my secret long-lost nephew!”

“No, he’s my baby! Swapped at birth by spiteful outcaste witchcraft!”

“Mother!”

“Oh, shut up you wastrel!”

Elsa turned her face away from them as Kristoff gaped in disbelief. Anna looked as if she was watching an orca feeding frenzy, but she clasped Kristoff’s shoulder with a questioning look at Hans.

“Satisfied?”

Hans sighed, his lips stretching patronisingly across his face.

“A clamouring of nobles does not a prince make. Only the Council of Heirs can name the rightful heir presumptives.”

All eyes turned to the Elder who could only stare at the heirs and Jack in turn, mutely. At last, he looked to his fellow Council members who nodded to him. His expression, when he finally addressed the Court, and Jack, was colder than the permafrost.

“The Council must convene a meeting to discuss this… turn of events. For the time being, Jack and the outcaste will remain under our… protection-”

Jack scowled-

“Jack!”

Jack turned, frowning, but his dark brows unknitted when he saw what Kristoff was doing. Kristoff’s left arm was level with his chest, but then drooped. Then he raised his right fist next to his head and extended two fingers that twisted back and forth twice. Finally, he lowered his right hand underneath his nose and curled his fingers into a claw. 

Jack sighed, as everyone looked on puzzled, then nodded. He crossed his arms and turned to the Elder with an air of resignation.

“As I was saying,” the Elder continued with a suspicious glance between the two outcastes, “Jack and the outcaste will remain under our protection while the Council makes its decision. As such, the Pilgrimage must wait until after the Council has made its decision.” The Elder turned to Anna and Elsa who were exchanging grins of relief, “I trust the Princesses, having spoken so far on their behalf, will not object to having the care of them in the time being?”

Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Jack turned to stare at him, wide-eyed.

_“What?”_

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting stuck on some of the later bits. Hard to decide on a particular image. The next chapter will be shorter. Wish me luck!


	3. Royal Rooms and Ruses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though the never-setting sun never sets before the long night of winter, darkness is never far at bay in the chambers of the Frozen Tear Palace. The boys settle in for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Leap Day!
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy this and apologise for any fault on my part.

“There was going to be chocolate cake,” Anna moaned, “tiers and tiers of chocolate cake!” 

“I’m sorry, Anna,” Elsa commiserated, peeking at the two young men who followed them at a distance behind and under guard, “this wasn’t how I wanted your birthday to go...”

“Are you kidding?” Anna’s eyes danced with an electric energy. “It was the coolest birthday ever! You putting that old bully in his place? That epic battle? And did you see Hans’ face?”

Elsa looked at her with serious, wide eyes.

“Someone could’ve gotten hurt. I could’ve-”

Anna touched her arm with a gentle smile.

“You’ve got to stop blaming that little girl who had to struggle with a power few people can even imagine in their entire lifetimes. What happened back then would’ve happened to anyone else in your shoes. And look at how well you did today!”

Elsa shook her head.

“It was terrifying. There were moments when I thought I might lose control...”

Anna slipped her hand down and clasped Elsa’s long, delicate fingers.

“You worry too much. You’ve trained long and hard, taming your power through the discipline you learned from all those spells and rituals- it would’ve driven me crazy! But you did it. Today, you really did it. When you conjured that Mandala of the Diamond Eternal, my heart just- just catapulted and exploded! But in a good way. And what was that fox tail thing you did?”

“Aegis of the Snow Mother.” 

“That was wicked awesome! Could you teach me? Aw, but, I’d never have the patience to learn…”

Elsa hid a chuckle.

“It’s not that hard. One tail is easy.”

Anna turned to her brightly.

“Think you can teach me to do that by tomorrow afternoon?”

Elsa’s eyes evaded her foster sister’s.

“Maybe that and two more afternoons…”

“I knew it wouldn’t be so easy,” Anna groaned, slumping against Elsa, but tilting her head to peer at the young men signing furiously to each other behind them, “though I guess we might have the time for it after all. Jack… Frost… who do you think he really is?”

Elsa followed her gaze, noting the dark looks the Servitors were giving Jack and Kristoff. A chill that had nothing to do with the ice all around them closed around her heart.

“I don’t know, but… we’ve lived in the palace all our lives. They’ve been surviving on the Wild Ways. What chance do they have?”

* * *

Jack was sorely tempted to throw a magic snowball in Kristoff’s face, but it was battered enough as it was. If they were on the Wild Ways, Jack could have hunted down some of those tiny yellow flowers, with Sven’s help, that were so good for bruises and bleeding. Maybe the palace had some fancy medicine, but he didn’t think the scowling guards that were flanking them were open to requests. In any case, these kingdom-folk could offer you poison with a smile as sweet as honey.

_Are you even listening to me?_

Kristoff signed in wolvish.

_Not really. It’s not like I wanted to come._

Jack signed back in the same sign language the wolf-people had crafted for their human form.

_Then why did you? For me? You can’t tell me exposing yourself like this was the only way. An ambush would have-_

_Complicated._

_We’re brothers. There’s nothing you can’t tell me._

Jack looked at Kristoff, really looked. His gaze ran down from the messy mop of hair the colour of snow buttercups in sunset, blazing in the horizon for those two short weeks before the long night. It counted the flecks of orange warmth in his spring-earth brown eyes. It traced fondly against the broad, stubborn nose and twinkled at the thin, firm mouth, that even now, was tight with a nervousness that made Jack want to hug him and reassure him that things would be alright. Jack's blue eyes wavered... but he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to lie to Kristoff.

_I’m a… beta. The moon told me to challenge the other… betas... and lead my pack._

He paused as it all added up visibly in Kristoff’s face. Jack continued.

_I’m sorry, brother. I should have told you earlier. I don’t want this to be goodbye, but… one doesn’t call the hunt, the hunt calls one._

Kristoff shook his head, his mouth curving mulishly.

“Kristoff-”

“No! No. I don’t accept it. You tell your moon, I can’t accept this.”

* * *

There were adjoining rooms where the daughters and sons of favoured nobles were meant to be stationed in case the heirs ever needed anything. For reasons of their own, all three heirs had refused the service of such a lady or gentleman-in-waiting, and so the rooms remained vacant. There were some scandalised gasps when Anna suggested that Jack and Kristoff could stay in those spare lady-in-waiting rooms in the Princesses’ chambers, but the Elder agreed to post a Servitor and a Flameguard each in those rooms. The nobles had all nodded primly at this. Even unarmed, as they had to be within the inner palace walls, but for the ceremonial cudgel of the Servitors, the guards would at least preserve the semblance of propriety. The bawdy jokes that Elsa would freeze the family jewels off of the first man to steal into her bed, or that Anna may as well not die a virgin, were only whispered amongst the more wicked-tongued, and well out of earshot of their tribesmen.

Kristoff had parted Jack’s company without a backward glance, though once he entered Anna’s chambers he looked completely defeated. Anna was too busy flinging haphazardly strewn dresses and undergarments behind a modesty screen.

“Ahahaha- ahaha... haa… I wasn’t- wasn’t expecting company,” she explained lamely, “er… make yourself at home. Can I get you some tea? Shall I summon for it?” 

The Flameguard, a stout warrior, bowed respectfully. 

“Your highness, perhaps we should escort the outcaste to his room?”

Anna faced him with her arms akimbo.

“Oh, come on. You can stop pretending you don’t know his name.”

The Flameguard glanced at the Servitor who was hidden behind a mask of a stallion, its stylised mane drawn like the unbridled waves. She bowed jerkily as Anna looked at her too.

The Servitor gestured to Kristoff with grudging courtesy and then gestured to the door of Kristoff’s intended room.

Anna sighed with impatience, but Kristoff interrupted her before she could speak.

“If- if I agree to guide you on the Wild Ways, will you... and maybe the other Princess too, speak to the Elder and ask him to let Jack go?”

Anna gaped at him for a few moments before she remembered herself and bid for him to sit down in an ornate willow chair by her writing desk. She sat herself on her bed as the Seritor looked on disapprovingly. Kristoff, himself, looked as comfortable with it as the Flameguard, his mouth twisting uncertainly before he shrugged and lowered himself into the chair as if it were made of cream. For a moment, he looked as if he were bracing himself for it to crumble underneath his bear-like frame. He gave it a few extra moments before he gingerly looked up.

By then, Anna had already hidden her grin behind her hand, pretending to tap her index finger over her lips thoughtfully.

“Ahem. Why- why would you make such an offer?”

Kristoff fixed her with a direct stare.

“The other Princess-”

“Elsa-”

“...right, Elsa. She said it herself- those who face the trial of Ahtohallan may end up dying there-”

“Not exactly. Ahtohallan keeps you alive forever-”

“-as an ice sculpture,” Kristoff finished, a haunted look on his face, “that’s what's waiting for him if he goes there. Sooner or later, King or not, you all go there to turn into ice statues.”

Anna placed a hand on his knee, making him glance down in surprise, but he met her gaze somberly, pleadingly.

“It isn’t so simple,” she explained softly, “the heirs are part of Ahtohallan, fragments of her soul. She sends us out to learn all the hopes and dreams of the people and we return to share them with her… or so we’re told. Jack… I’ve never seen or heard of anyone so gifted- other than Elsa, and Elsa’s-” she laughed, shaking her head, “she’s _Elsa_. I’ve once seen her conjure an entire armada of five-mast warships on the Western Sea. Three hundred ships of ice, to celebrate our Kingdom’s founding. She actually made them do naval manoeuvres. There were some very startled whales that day.” Anna stared at Kristoff soberly. “She was only fifteen.”

The Flameguard dipped his head to tuck away the reverence in his eyes while the Servitor swallowed visibly, gaze distant with memory. Anna replaced her hands on her lap and turned to look out through the ice-pane doors of the balcony, watching the languid dance of the aurora. 

“Since then, with all her learning and training, she’s… well, you saw a little of the result just now.” Anna turned back to Kristoff with a smile. “But Jack’s pretty impressive too. They say the people of the Wild Ways have their own powerful magic-”

But Kristoff was already shaking his head.

“He’s never done showy stuff like that before. He’s not some warlock of the wild. Yeah, I’ve seen him fly on the wind. I’ve seen him freeze the surface of a hot spring. And sometimes, when we’re roughhousing, he can make people, and _things_ , forget he’s there. They pass right through him. But this is the first time I’ve seen him do all that… frost lightning. The first time his magic’s been so angry.”

Anna touched a particularly nasty bruise on his face impulsively. He flicked his eyes at her in startlement and she flushed and took her hand away.

“I wouldn’t be happy either if my brother was kidnapped and beaten.”

The Flameguard had the decency to look away though the Servitor stared impassively.

“He doesn’t belong here,” Kristoff insisted quietly but with intensity, “he belongs with the pack.” Kristoff swallowed. “Don’t take him away from his family. I’ll do anything.”

Anna chewed her bottom lip for a moment before she framed her careful reply.

“Kristoff... Jack… if he’s really a part of Ahtohallan… and it’s so hard to deny what I’ve- what _we’ve_ seen… he’ll want to return to her, whatever we have to say about it.”

Kristoff shook his head again- more firmly or more desperately, Anna couldn’t tell.

“He’s doing this because he thinks the Man in the Moon is telling him to do this. He’s a spirit some of the folk of the Wild Ways believe protects them when the never-setting sun is low and the shadows stretch across the land. Jack’s always believed the Man in the Moon’s spoken to him. Twice now, apparently.”

Anna studied the nervousness in Kristoff’s face. 

“But you don’t believe.”

He bowed his head and laced his fingers over the back of it, tufts of blonde hair fountaining up vexedly.

“I don’t know what to believe. But I can’t believe Jack would abandon our family like that. He would never.”

Anna resisted the urge to pat his head and settled for a gentle smile.

“No,” she agreed, recalling the way Jack had looked when Hans trained his crossbow on Kristoff, “family is everything to him.”

Kristoff looked up in surprise, and before he could help it, returned her smile.

Anna turned a faint shade of pink and rose abruptly. 

“I’m starving! Are you starving? Dinner for four?”

* * *

 _‘This isn’t a candlelight dinner,’_ Elsa told herself, _‘this is just a normal dinner with candles that happen to be lit.’_

The distant glow of the sun was over the Western Sea, on the opposite side of the view from her balcony, and the view of the sprawling city below, lit cosily in lamplight, was canopied by a sky just dark enough for the nestled stars to wink charmingly down at them.

Jack sat across from her, his eyes lifted to the sliver of a crimson moon just peeking over the white mountains in the east. His silvery hair glistened as if snow crystals sparkled in them, and for all that he sat on the ice-crafted dining chair with his legs folded, and that he wore a fraying, undyed wool shirt and tattered breeches, Jack looked very much like a prince of the realm, the hydrangea blue of his eyes reflecting the Kingdom’s constellations and the ancient stories they told.

Elsa sipped from her flute of pomegranate juice and set it down on the wrought-ice table laden with the rapidly cooling food the maids had sent up from the kitchens. The guards who had escorted Jack to her chambers stood just beyond the frosted doors of the balcony, watching them like a pair of gyrfalcons. Feeling the press of their scrutiny, Elsa fought back with a hospitable smile for her guest.

“You haven’t touched much of your dinner. Does the food not appeal?”

Jack lowered his gaze to her, his eyes running over her with the same attention that he gave the movement of the stars and the rising of the moon. She flushed, casting about for something polite to fill the silence, but he beat her to it.

“Do you hear the moon?”

Elsa’s ocean blue eyes widened slightly.

“I’m sorry?”

Jack watched her unblinkingly, his breath stirring the spring air into wisps of winter’s chill.

Elsa folded her hands demurely in her lap, and very slightly shook her head.

“I can’t say I have.”

Jack turned to the moon again, a trace of a grin across his lips.

“I must seem like another crazy outcaste to you. Raving about talking moons. Thinking he’s a prince.”

“Princes and princesses of the realm are discovered by the merit of them possessing the Touch of Frost. Sovereigns have always been childless. Our royal titles have never been inherited along bloodlines.” Elsa leaned fractionally closer. “Being a prince or princess is about who you are rather than who your parents once were.”

“Your Elder doesn’t agree,” Jack pointed out, leaning into his ice-sculpted chair, its back intricately shaped from icicles to form a miniature trellis dripping with roses. 

Elsa hummed with mirth.

“The Elder doesn’t like the appearance of weakness. But you needn’t think he doesn’t take his role seriously. Candidly, the Council cares about its influence, yes, but it places its duty first and foremost in all its decisions. Whatever else you may be, you are clearly a prince.”

Jack picked up his fork and played with the peas on his plate.

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

Elsa dipped her head then peered at him through her fine lashes.

“May I be honest?”

“You should never need permission for that.”

Elsa conceded a small smile, but it faded quickly.

“If I could ride the winds, I would ride them as far away from here as possible.”

Jack chuckled as if she had just told a joke, but his voice was as quiet as hers.

“Are you sure you want to be overheard saying that?”

Elsa nodded deeply, careful to keep up appearances for the guards within view.

“I’ve reinforced the doors to muffle enough sound. Besides, I’m already marching to my death, how could they improve upon my tribulations?”

“You could be Queen.”

Elsa’s eyes lit with a spark of silent laughter.

“In which case- how could they improve upon my tribulations?” She picked her knife and fork up and applied herself to filleting her halibut. “I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’m trying to frighten off the competition.”

Jack was distractedly packing the tines of his fork, as if preparing kebabs. 

“Competition? You haven’t shown me half of what you can do.”

There was a minute pause, but Elsa recovered somewhat with a polished dab at her mouth with her napkin, even though she hadn’t eaten a bite since their earlier lull.

“The heirs have historically kept an ace up their sleeve. Assassinations would be unthinkable, but there are all manner of accidents that can occur on the Pilgrimage. I don’t believe you have anything to worry about, though, since I don’t believe you’ve shown us all you can do either.”

Jack grinned lazily and let his fork fall with a clatter. Elsa winced slightly.

“The Man in the Moon told me to go,” Jack confessed. Elsa looked at him evenly and he shrugged. “It’s okay if you don’t believe me, but that’s what he told me last winter. When the never-setting sun faded completely and we huddled close to our fires in the heart of the long night, the moon called and I listened. He said I need to fight for the throne. It’s only the second thing he’s ever said to me in all my life, and I don’t think I can ignore him, the Man in the Moon, whatever danger lies down this path… no matter who I have to abandon.”

Elsa looked down and her hands hovered over her cutlery.

“I hear singing sometimes. Not actual words… but a rhythm. Like a hum in the air. Like a sigh in the tides, just beyond actual hearing, but you can feel it. Beating, rushing, pulsing.” Elsa blinked, as if waking from a reverie. She smiled almost shyly at Jack. “I’ve only told that to one other person.”

“Anna?” Jack guessed.

Elsa nodded and sighed softly.

“She is my sister in the truest sense possible. Without her I’d… I prefer not to think about it.”

Jack huffed a laugh.

“Sisters… brothers… princesses, outcastes… we’re all just the same in the end.”

Elsa shared his wry amusement.

“All just… trying to be with the ones we love just a little bit longer.”

“...but I have to do this,” Jack whispered.

Though she still smiled, there was a sadness in Elsa’s eyes- a forlorn gray, like ashes, sinking inexorably into those blue depths. She raised her glass to him. 

“I guess, after all, we’re all just the same in the end.”

* * *

Cowering servants bowed, masked Servitors watched, smoking lamps burned- they were all the same, weren’t they? Props and extras on a stage where only one thing mattered- the Prince. Hans smiled like he was supposed to, bowed when he needed to, held what he had to, discarded as he must. In the end, the only thing that mattered was that…

...the play was always going to be about him.

And who was this extra who moaned and bitched as if she wasn’t labouring under a massive misunderstanding of self-worth?

“That damn Eldur’s stubbornness will ruin everything! Count yourself lucky that I bought us those three days. What are you going to do about that outcaste warlock?”

Hans smiled even as he fantasised about beating her skull in.

“Nothing’s changed. We’ve worked for three long years on this, nothing’s going to go awry.”

The woman’s eyes stretched in a half-crazed glare.

“Three years? _Three_ years? There’s not been a day in these _ten years_ that I haven’t dreamt of bathing my hands in that witch’s blood! There’s not been a day in these ten years that I haven’t dreamt of hearing her scream as I drive hot iron hooks into her eyes!”

Hans lashed at his clothes with his magic and felt the snow silk fall away. Perfect rosy skin flowed smoothly down his lean, swordsman’s body. Tinted with a dusting of fine copper hairs that accented his wholesome manliness, his body was princely enough- but for the rough, craggy, living ice that marbled his flesh, twisting it torturously as the tumorous growth tore out of him in ugly scabs. The Council member recoiled- and she had seen this before. Oh yes, Hans remembered standing there without a stitch on at thirteen, his body just budding into its manhood, witnessing his grotesque ruin reflected in the Council’s horrified eyes. 

Hans smiled as if they were continuing a pleasant picnic.

“Calm yourself, Agaley. I haven’t slept well these past ten years either.”

Agaley looked away, but she pursued hatefully.

“I can’t let her get away with this. No matter what.”

Hans’ smile broadened.

“That’s why you decided to save this Kingdom, didn’t you? Why you entrusted me with the Scrolls of the Inner Palace with all its secret designs?”

Placing his hands over his abdomen, Hans tried to keep his smile as sweat beaded at his temples and on his back. Blood blossomed in a ring as glittering prongs pierced from within his flesh. The squelch of flesh pushing and writhing made Agaley clamp a hand to her mouth, but she couldn’t look away. A circle of tearing ice thorns ripped out of him to reveal a blood-streaked delicacy and elegance. What emerged was a chain of wrought snowflakes, each unique and exquisite, each a royal emblem that rested against a tracery of frost that depicted: The Unbroken King coursing his way through the melting streams and rivers, spring in his wake, The Burnished King lifting the sun to midheaven, the summer’s work at full spate, The Titan King lovingly stroking the pregnant fields, autumn’s promised harvest, and The Unseen King’s dancing silhouette in a frenzy of flurrying snow, winter’s wild abandon. Cleansed and placed in the light, it would blaze like a thousand dawns illuminating the majestic glaciers to an incandescent celestial blue. No one would be able to tell that it was a painstakingly made fake, one crafted very recently from the blood and magic of Hans of the Westergaard Tribe. A fake of the ancient and true High Frost Crown.

Hans placed the bloody crown on his head, ignoring the crimson rivulets that ran down his head and mingled with the sweat dripping from his face. Living ice scabbed over his wound. Hans' smile threatened to split his face. 

“No matter how many heirs there are, only the true Sovereign returns from the Pilgrimage. _Long live the King._ ”

* * *

TBC

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, as I indicated last update. Also, poor health and personal issues are slowing me down somewhat. I still have material enough for at least one more timely update, but I might take longer for the ones after that. See you again next update!


	4. The Boy You Cried "Wolf!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Class is in session if Jack wants in on the succession, but he's not the only one who wants in. The four get to know each other a little better, but a fifth heralds chaos. Will they find him before it's too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy and apologies for those who are offended in any way.

Anna was being murdered. In slow agonising lectures. But it was bad enough that Jack was lashed to the chair by a vindictive Kristoff, so Anna had to set a good example.

“...which is why there are two schools of thought on the Touch of Frost- two styles of utilising the Royal Gift, if you will. The first conceptualisation is that the heirs are conduits for the noblest of powers that dominate this land- that of ice,” Elsa explained in front of her ice-board, keywords graven by an invisible finger as she spoke.

Anna felt her attention slipping and nodded studiously to make up for it.

“Perhaps the best evidence to support this is the fact that the four fundamental elements- Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water, all have their elemental anthropomorphs. Commonly known as the Four Great Spirit Kings. If this great land created representatives for the four fundamental elements, it’s not hard to see that the true Sovereign is the analogue for the fifth and singular rarefied element- Ice.”

“Mhm. Mhm. Analogues. Absolutely,” Anna affirmed.

“And of course, the results of the Royal Gift themselves are expressed, and dare we say limited, to the designs occurring naturally in nature. Frost patterns, icicles, snowflakes- these are all hallmarks of many of the uses of the Touch of Frost, big or small. Indeed, the name “Touch of Frost” itself, derives just from this fact.”

“Yeah, makes so much sense! Derivationally factual!”

“But this is all animistic nonsense and rank superstition according to the anthropocentric scholars-”

“Hmm… so it was animated nonsense after all,” Anna observed and promptly collapsed over her study desk. Elsa leaned worriedly over her ice lectern.

“Anna!”

“...‘m alright…” she reassured, muffled by her desk, “it’s just so, and please don’t take this the wrong way, _dry!_ ”

“How come she gets to say that?” Jack demanded, struggling against the knots of his own repurposed bedsheet.

“You want to be a Prince, you’ve got to learn this stuff,” Kristoff returned mercilessly, “unless of course, you’ve changed your mind…”

“Urgh!”

“Well then, you were saying, Ma’am?”

“Er… right… erm… Kristoff?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Are these fake eyeglasses really necessary?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Kristoff and Jack chorused as Anna shot them a disdainful look.

Their assigned guards, paired Flameguards and Servitors, all assembled behind the open balcony doors. Like anxious parents of Wind Caste children on bring-your-parent-to-school day, they formed a spectrum from perplexion to painted rage.

“Isn’t it recess time? I think we’re due for a recess.”

“But there’s just this little bit more on the anthropocentric theory of humanity’s dominance over Ice, and how the human imperative, and not the natural order, tames and shapes the primordial elements for the purpose of civilisation-”

It was Jack’s turn to collapse.

Recess in Elsa’s impromptu cram school would have made any school child faint with envy. A fountain of chocolate, folding silkily into a bowl of enchanted jadeite, was wheeled in by an advance force of servants, who also escorted a colour wheel of cut fruits that were well out of season. This was followed by silver platter after silver platter of roasted meats dripping in their own juices, and crystal bowl after crystal bowl of fresh salads, each topped with a special something extra, all floated over by a small army of servants who arranged the feast on the table Elsa had dutifully conjured.

“Okay, but remember that you could end up as an ice statue by the end of the week,” Kristoff reminded Jack, sucking his drool back in.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the growling of your belly,” Jack rapped back distractedly.

Elsa went over to invite the Flameguards and Servitors to join them and Anna smiled with exasperated affection after her. To the boys, she confided, “Elsa always tries, and there are those who probably think it’s all an act. That it’s all phony. But she means it. She really does.”

“Then, it’s a pity she was born a Princess,” Kristoff blurted, immediately wincing as he remembered himself.

Anna laughed and nodded with a soft smile, watching the guards turn Elsa down with profuse humility.

“You may be right.”

“We don’t always get to choose,” Jack muttered, and Kristoff flicked a pensive look at him.

Anna glanced between the both of them and suppressed a sigh. Elsa returned to them with a defeated grin.

“I might be able to get them to eat in shifts if the servants will set up another table in your room,” Elsa suggested, turning to Jack who shrugged.

“Knock yourself out.”

Elsa’s smile came with the tiniest hint of a frown at his colourful turn of phrase and Jack grinned unrepentantly.

Anna was into her third helping when Jack cast Elsa a sidelong glance.

“I haven’t seen that Prince of yours all day.”

Elsa stroked the glazed gradients of her blue-white teacup for a moment before she answered.

“He resents me… and he has good reason to.” 

Anna set her fork down and tried to swallow, Kristoff handing her a glass of water when the food fought her.

“Look… haa… haa… he attacked… haa… first!” Anna pointed out, breathless from her battle.

Jack turned back to Elsa who smiled feebly.

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t mind. We’re as good as snowed in here, waiting for your Council to make its decision.”

“Jack, maybe she doesn’t want to tell it,” Kristoff suggested with a meaningful look.

“No- it’s… it’s fine. I lost control of my powers on several occasions as a child. On one such occasion, I… I froze several Servitors… and turned parts of Hans’ body into living ice. The effect was- _is_ permanent.”

Kristoff’s brows disappeared behind his bangs, but Jack’s furrowed.

“Turning people into ice- I thought that’s an Ahtohallan thing.”

Anna glanced reproachfully at Elsa before turning to Jack.

“Yes, it is. Elsa’s also the only heir to manifest that same power. There are many at court who consider her the greatest heir who’s ever lived.”

Jack quirked a brow and whistled appreciatively. Kristoff, however, paled.

“But it’s really not Elsa’s fault,” Anna maintained, “Hans had threatened to cut us up with a sword he conjured!”

“To be fair, he wasn’t going to actually do it,” Elsa interjected, “he just wanted to get me to use the Gift.” 

“With a _sword_ , Elsa. And you were eleven!”

“He was following orders.”

“Yeah... no. I was there. The Elder didn’t say ‘cut them up!’ That was totally his choice.”

Jack twirled his staff lazily, causing a jolt of panic to ripple from the guards. The heirs didn’t even notice, and Kristoff was lost in thought.

“And so he hates you,” Jack surmised. “Seems like a dangerous man to offend.”

Anna flapped her hand dismissively.

“He wouldn’t dare do anything to Elsa, and I just have to make sure I don’t end up getting frozen right next to him in Ahtohallan.”

Elsa looked pained.

“Anna- it doesn’t work that way. Any of us could be the next Sovereign. Only Ahtohallan knows.”

Anna smiled patiently.

“A true Sovereign protects her people. My Gift’s barely worth mentioning- what kind of Queen would I be? And Hans? He’s a murderous sociopath. And his Gift isn’t anything like yours. Of course Ahtohallan’s going to pick you.”

Jack cleared his throat.

“Or Jack,” Anna amended, then they looked at each other and grinned. 

“Well, it’s true that Elsa’s pretty good,” Jack conceded, “but I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve, so don’t get too complacent.”

Kristoff turned to each of them in bewilderment.

“How can you be so… okay with all of this? With any of this? All of you could die-”

“Not exactly die-” Anna protested.

“Well, not exactly alive either, right?” Kristoff demanded. “You’ll be frozen in Ahtohallan. Like some sort of ornament. For all eternity.”

The heirs couldn’t meet his gaze. Kristoff turned desperately to Jack.

“How can you go through with this? Do you even want to be King?”

Jack bit his lower lip and sighed before answering.

“Yes.”

Kristoff blinked, sinking back in his chair.

“No, this isn’t you. This is because you think the Man in the Moon wants you to do this.”

Jack’s eyes were kind, but they held Kristoff’s firmly.

“It’s because of _you._ I decided to do this because of the Man in the Moon, it’s true, but the reason I can do this, the reason I _want_ to do this, not just have to do this, is because of you, and Jaime, and Mrs Bennet, and _Sophie_. Little Sophie who hasn’t even caught the scent of kingdom-folk but already knows to fear them. And what about the people on the Wild Ways who get hunted down and murdered or worse? Or the ever-encroaching Summer Ways? A King could change all that. And I guess he could look after the kingdom-folk too, while he's at it,” Jack added, flicking his gaze to the Princesses.

Kristoff’s mouth worked, but he couldn’t speak.

“Is this true? Is this all true?” Anna asked, turning between Jack and Kristoff.

“It’s probably true…” Elsa murmured sadly, “there are historical records of civilising missions, and I suspect reports of outcaste attacks on caravans are sometimes exaggerated, often resulting in disproportionate reprisals.” 

“Sometimes?” Jack repeated, a little heat in his tone.

“Jack, there have been many injustices, I’m sure, but the people from the Wild Ways have spilled blood on the Summer Ways too.”

Jack scoffed.

“Fools and desperate people, maybe… you’d have to be one or the other to attack anyone on the Summer Ways.”

“Then let’s make a pact!” Anna interjected. “Whoever becomes Sovereign, Elsa or Jack. Okay, okay- or _me_. Whoever becomes Sovereign will end this. No more fighting between the two Ways. No more bloodshed or bullying or anything else that hurts both our peoples.”

She stretched out her hand and nodded encouragingly at Elsa and Jack. Hesitantly, Elsa placed her hand over Anna’s. Jack clicked his tongue and sighed heavily, but he put his hand out and clasped Elsa’s, surprising a blush from her.

“It’s a deal,” he declared.

Anna beamed and Elsa ventured a shy smile.

“But you might not become King,” Kristoff whispered, not looking at them as his fists clenched white, “none of you might return.”

“Most hunts don’t succeed,” Jack whispered back, “but the pack that never tries, waits only to die.”

Far away down below, in the palace garden past the central wall, the palace rabbits had gone underground. A spring breeze stirred the branches of a perfectly manicured half-ring of bushes, and as it passed, a few branches rustled a little too long after. A skilled hunter would have frozen and reached for her spear. Cold sweat would have broken out against her nape, and her heart would have thundered in her eardrums. There was nothing to be seen, no sound to be heard, and yet-

-something, something was here!

* * *

Kristoff jolted up suddenly, and the servants clearing the dishes jumped.

“Jack! Did Sven make it?”

Jack grinned at him as he rose from the table.

“Took you long enough… Can’t believe you forgot about your one true companion.”

“One true companion?” Anna asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

Kristoff shot Jack an annoyed look and turned to Anna with a shrug.

“He’s a friend. My oldest friend. We became outcastes together when the Seers… decided I didn’t fit in.”

“That’s another stupid system that needs to change,” Jack remarked, leaping onto a sudden gust and riding it briefly as it climbed up skyward. He slid back down on a swirling loop of ice that coalesced out of thin air. “Let’s add that to the pact!” 

Elsa had been smiling at his antics, but her brows steepled at his exuberant suggestion.

“I know it can be cruel, but the Orders of the Castes have sustained the order of the Kingdom for centuries.”

Jack leaned against his staff and took a deep breath.

“It’s also upheld a tradition of leaving children to the mercy of the Wild Ways, and the only mercy of the Wild Ways is that the weak don’t suffer long.”

Elsa paled and even Anna’s restless energy wilted somewhat. Kristoff shook his head.

“Stop it, Jack. This is their Kingdom. They can do what they want. Now, tell me how Sven is.”

Jack watched the Princesses thoughtfully for a moment before he turned a grin on Kristoff.

“He was out of his mind with worry, and no one could understand him without you there, but the wolf-folk sniffed it out of him. Fear, reckless flight through the forest, and Flameguards. We let our imagination do the rest.”

“Sven… doesn’t speak?” Anna asked meekly.

Kristoff frowned.

“What? Oh! No, no, he does. He’s-”

“-a reindeer,” Jack finished, “who speaks through Kristoff because-”

“Jack…” Kristoff warned without much hope.

“-Kristoff’s a Reindeer-speaker.” 

“Reindeer-speaker?” Elsa echoed with a quizzical glance at the boys.

Kristoff shook his head and sighed.

“I sort of understand what reindeers want to say.”

“And horses, to some extent. And elk,” Jack added.

“Are you done?” Kristoff demanded.

“What? I wanted the Princesses to know how cool my lil’ bro is,” Jack defended himself with a grin, tousling Kristoff’s blonde hair. Kristoff gently slapped his hand away and fixed his hair.

“Are you an idiot? They’re _princesses_ . And they’re both like _you_.”

“Why, Kristoff, are you calling me a prince?” Jack exclaimed, fanning himself as if he might swoon.

“Oh, shut up!” Kristoff snapped as Elsa and Anna were reduced to giggles.

“No, but seriously,” Anna began when she had calmed herself a little more, “that’s amazing! No wonder the Seers say that you’re the best guide in the land.”

“Kristoff’s a one-man trade caravan,” Jack declared proudly, “ _and_ the most eligible bachelor of the Wild Ways.”

“Jack!”

Kristoff blushed furiously as Elsa hid a grin and Anna peered at him with interest.

“You don’t say…”

“Don’t listen to him,” Kristoff begged and Anna laughed.

“Why? There’s no shame in being handsome in a big, scruffy sort of way.”

Kristoff covered half his face, the other half exposing his reddened embarrassment.

“Yeah, well, people call Jack the Good Light of the Wild Ways. He protects lost children and guides them to a home. There are few entrances in the Wild Ways that will remain closed when Jack calls.”

“Yeah, I guess it’d be hard to say no,” Anna agreed, her eyes straying to Jack’s staff.

“Oh, c’mon, it isn’t like that!” Jack protested, “People just know the Wild Ways are a dangerous place. They know it could be their own kid that gets lost, or orphaned, next time, and they’d want their kids to be safe too.”

“That’s an amazing thing to do, helping all of those children,” Elsa noted gently, and Jack scratched his head awkwardly.

“Actually, I’m one of those kids,” Kristoff confessed, “And Sven too, I guess. Jack brought us to the wolf-folk’s den.” 

Jack grabbed him in a companionable one-armed hug, but only succeeded in pulling himself up against the larger young man. He grinned ruefully at Kristoff.

“Can’t take the credit for that. The wolf-folk caught your scent first.”

“But it was your idea to find me,” Kristoff countered, wickedly lifting Jack off his feet into a bear hug.

“Alright, alright, I yield, I yield,” Jack gasped, tapping out.

Kristoff laughed and released him, and Jack leaned against him, chuckling. 

“Are all the wolf-folk like you?” Anna wanted to know, a wistful look on her face.

Kristoff and Jack traded a glance. Kristoff shrugged.

“A pack that plays together, hunts together,” Jack answered for them. 

“We have epic snowball fights,” Anna shared, turning to Elsa with a twinkle in her eye, “Elsa cheats with siege weapons, though.”

“I do not cheat,” Elsa clarified with dignity, “I improvise.”

“We should play!” Jack suggested immediately. “Boys against Girls! Outcastes vs Princesses!”

Kristoff shuddered.

“With you and the Princesses playing, it won’t be a snowball fight, more like a snowball war.”

“And we haven’t finished studying-” Elsa reasoned, conjuring the ice-board once more.

“Er… exercise is part of a holistic curriculum too,” Anna hastily pointed out.

Elsa glanced wryly at her board, and the notes that were carving themselves again into the ice.

“My lessons aren’t that bad-”

A blood-curdling scream shattered their banter, and they raced to the railings of the balcony. Down below, there were only topiary and trellises. Someone’s frantic sobs echoed up, and guards had yet to appear.

“Your highnesses,” a voice spoke urgently behind them, and they turned to find a pair of Flameguards and another pair of Servitors formed up into an escort, “we should retreat inside.”

“Someone’s in trouble!” Anna objected, turning back to the scene below. The distant cry of challenge from the guards gave her some comfort- until a bush stirred and a shadow darted out.

Kristoff lunged forward, almost throwing himself over the railing.

“Is that-”

Jack threw himself into the air, swooping down like a giant bird of prey, his shepherd's cape flapping wildly behind him.

“Elsa!” Anna cried as the other Princess leapt after him. The Servitors and Flameguards surged forward, but an icy bridge was already bursting away from the railing of the balcony, Elsa right on the edge of it. Kristoff hesitated for a fraction of a second, then jumped onto the bridge. He took a step forward, then stopped and turned to Anna. Their eyes met and he stretched out his hand.

“Coming?”

“Princess Anna!” a Flameguard called out in alarm, the Servitor beside him snatching at her robes. Snow shot up beneath her feet, propelling her seven feet high. Kristoff scooped her up readily and raced down the bridge, the Princess in his arms.

“Treason!”

“Princess Anna’s been seized! Seized by the outcaste!”

“To arms! To arms!”

Anna slapped her forehead and groaned.

“This is crazy! What are we even chasing?”

“A kid we know!” Kristoff shouted a little breathlessly, “A kid we know who is _very dead_ when we find him!”

The bridge wound around the palace walls and into a corner of the inner palace gardens. A cascade of blue roses flowed over a towering trellis here, rioting spectacularly like a gushing waterfall emptying into a lake of snow white lotuses. Kristoff slowed despite himself, his eyes fixed upon the wonder of the impossible blossoms. 

“Do you see them?” Anna asked, twisting around for a better look.

“No, I-” Kristoff was just shaking his head when the flare of magic and the crash of ice just beyond the “waterfall” made their bridge shudder. 

“Over there,” Anna pointed, but Kristoff was already dashing ahead.

A bristling company of Flameguards was an odd thing to feel relieved to see, and the good feeling evaporated quickly once the princess and the foretold guide witnessed what the armed guards had surrounded.

A swirling shell of ice, crested with a spiral of spikes, seemed to have exploded out of the ground, the remnants of a row of hedges strewn around it. Elsa stood before it, her hands glowing with power as she faced off the eager guards, but Jack was nowhere to be seen.

“Elsa!” Anna called out.

They saw her turn, the surprise on her face quickly turning to shock.

“Anna?”

The Flameguards expressed their alarm more pointedly. A dozen crossbows swung towards them, and Kristoff turned his back to their deadly bolts without thinking, sheltering Anna.

Out of the glistening bridge erupted a bulwark of unassailable ice.

“Stop this at once!” Elsa ordered. The guards staggered back, the fear in their eyes evenly divided between the seething Princess and her spontaneous shield. 

“Your Highness,” one of them with the rank of captain ventured bravely, “there’s been a possible attack on the palace grounds-”

“It is being attended to,” Elsa interjected curtly, glancing over to Anna who was being set down by Kristoff. Anna tilted her head up in silent question. Elsa raised her shoulders ever so subtly. 

She hadn’t the slightest idea of what was going on either.

“Your Highness,” Kristoff began a little awkwardly, looming from behind Anna, “there’s nothing to worry about. It’s probably… a friend of ours who somehow snuck in.”

He emerged within view of the guards, right after Anna, and was greeted by their focused glares. Resisting the urge to retreat back behind cover, Kristoff turned to the spiky dome.

“Jack’s?” he guessed and Elsa nodded.

Kristoff sighed and marched right up to the barrier.

“Jack!” he hollered, “Stop scolding him and let me have a turn!”

Jack couldn’t have heard it, but he obliged all the same. Kristoff could picture Jack scowling and a certain wolf-boy whimpering, as clearly as he could see his reflection in the jagged ice.

The dome creaked and split, a section of it crumbling to open a doorway. True enough, Jack stood inside, his arms folded grumpily, a very mollified naked young man crumpled by his feet.

“Jamie!” Kristoff barked and the young man flinched. Kristoff started to stomp towards the trembling youth, but turned around at Anna’s startled squeak. Catching her blush, and finding Elsa’s as well, he whipped his head to Jack.

“Fenrir's balls! Give him your cape, Jack!”

Jack rolled his eyes and untied his cape, swinging it off his shoulders to drape it over Jamie.

Kristoff closed the distance between them and sank down to his haunches to meet Jaime at eye level. Jamie took one look at his dark expression and lowered his head submissively, averting his gaze.

Kristoff sighed and took the lad’s chin in his hand, turning his head left and right. Blocking the wolf-boy from view, he parted the cape briefly for a quick scan of his body.

“Doesn’t look like you’re injured.”

Jamie shook his head timidly.

“I’m okay, honestly. The shade sprites helped me get in safely.” 

Jack leaned on his staff, exhaling gustily.

“Honestly, is everyone from the pack going to trickle in over the week?”

“But you didn’t tell us you were going away with the kingdom-folk,” Jamie complained, then misread Kristoff’s frown and hastily looked down. “I’ll return the drumstick…” he offered, holding up a ptarmigan drumstick punctured with fang marks, “but I was hungry… and no one was eating it.”

“That’s what this is about? A drumstick?” Kristoff demanded.

“He saw the food on a serving cart and thought he could sneak one away before anyone noticed,” Jack explained, grinning despite it all. “A maid caught him right in the act and probably thought a great big wolf was going to maul her.” 

“I was hungry,” Jamie repeated softly, then sniffed a new scent and looked up.

Elsa and Anna approached cautiously, studying the wild-looking boy who had bits of grass and streaks of dirt on his face and body, and a feral edge to his alert brown eyes. Elsa ventured first.

“Would you introduce us?”

Jack straightened reluctantly, looking sidelong at the curious wolf-boy.

“Jamie Bennett, Scion of the Bitter Winter Pack. He’s… a chieftainess’ son, I guess? In rank? So, probably not a good idea to hurt him unless you want to declare war on the wolf-folk,” he added for the benefit of the eavesdropping Flameguards. They glared daggers at him in return.

“Are these girls your friends, Jack?” Jamie asked, “They smell amazing!”

Kristoff stirred in surprise and even Jack’s eyes widened. Kristoff pinched Jamie’s cheeks and the wolf-boy moaned in pain and struggled feebly.

“Oh? Is this little kid old enough to be going around sniffing girls, now?” Kristoff teased.

Jack sighed.

“What are you talking about? He’s old enough to find a mate. But he’ll have to work hard to win the hand of the Princesses.” To Elsa and Anna, he explained, “Wolf-folk don’t have much interest in how you look; more in how you smell. He basically just said you ladies are really hot.”

Elsa blushed bright red while Anna turned a pleasant pink.

“But you like their smell too!” Jamie whined thickly as Kristoff continued to stretch his face.

Kristoff flushed a bit and proceeded to ruthlessly tickle him. Jamie yelped, then flailed in earnest as he squealed for mercy.

“HAHAHAH! OH-KHAYIIIIIH! AHAHAHAH! I’M SOH-RIIIIIIIIIIIH!”

He lasted barely a minute before Jamie glowed and his form shifted. When the light dimmed, there was a very spent silver wolf panting in Kristoff’s arms.

“That was fast,” Kristoff muttered. “He must be exhausted.”

Jack knocked the Reindeer-speaker lightly on the head with the crook of his staff.

“Of course he’s exhausted. And probably terrified. This was probably the most harrowing experience he’s ever had.”

Kristoff nuzzled wolf-Jamie’s face, looking at Jack a bit sheepishly.

“I got carried away… seeing him here.”

“He really is a wolf,” Anna breathed walking carefully up to Kristoff for a closer look.

Elsa watched Anna reach a hand out to the wolf and gestured sharply to the anxious guards lurching forward. They froze. Elsa gripped her magic at the ready, sharply focused on the deadly lupine jaw that hung open as the wolf-boy rested against Kristoff. Jamie studied Anna with watchful interest, then seemed to come to a decision. Reaching over, he pressed his nose against Anna’s hand, sniffing, and favoured her with a lick that made her squirm a little and giggle. In mere moments, Anna was kneeling beside Kristoff, scratching the young arctic wolf’s ears as it sprawled contentedly over her lap. Elsa relaxed and found Jack’s eyes on her. She didn’t look away.

“How did he manage to get in?” 

“Jamie has gifts of his own,” Jack answered simply.

Elsa nodded, not pressing the point. She turned, instead, to the captain who had spoken up earlier.

“Perhaps we can get some food, and some clothes, I think, for the young man?”

A Flameguard next to him looked as if he was going to argue, but the captain dropped into a smart bow. 

“At once, your Royal Highness!” He swept his gaze in humble eloquence over the outcastes and dipped a shallower bow. “If it pleases your Highness, may I leave some of my men to accompany your Highnesses until I return?”

Elsa tried not to smile.

“We place ourselves in your care, Captain.”

By the time the captain returned, the royal party had settled down for a picnic. The picnic “blanket” was a swath of priceless snow silk that Anna simply wove out of thin air, and the Flameguards blanched to see outcastes plant their bottoms on it. That and the fact that Kristoff had Jack’s cape to cushion his bottom, were the only reasons why Kristoff sat on the numbingly cold cloth.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Elsa asked, peering at him with concern. “Snow silk is really cold for most people.”

“D-don’t worry about me,” Kristoff insisted stubbornly, “Ja-Jamie’s perfectly alright.”

Jamie lounged happily in his thick, warm pelt, even pawing the sheer but tough fabric inquisitively.

Jack watched the twitch of Jamie’s ears and the angle of his tail and shrugged.

“I don’t know why he’s pretending not to be cold,” he answered the wolf-boy with a glance at Kristoff.

Jamie cocked his head at Kristoff and whined softly, his tail wagging.

“No need for that! I’m _fine..._ ” Kristoff insisted and immediately shivered.

Anna watched them enviously. 

“That’s so cool. You guys speaking wolf. Wolvish? Wolf-speak?”

Before Jack could comment, the young wolf closed his eyes and lifted his muzzle into the air.

“What’s he doing?” Anna asked, whispering instinctively. Then she blinked and rubbed her eyes.

Faint and almost invisible, motes of yellow sunlight detached themselves from the rays of light around them and drifted over to an embarrassed Kristoff.

“I told you... I don’t need the-”

“You’re turning blue,” Jack told him flatly, “just let the sun sprites do their job.” To Anna he added, “Jaime talks to spirits. He’s still next-in-line to be the pack shaman, even though the current one wants him to take over now. Mrs. Bennett, our matriarch, wants to wait until Jaime thinks he’s ready himself.”

Jack’s eyes strayed to Elsa.

“The Wild Ways has its nobles and heirs too.” 

Elsa held his gaze, her ocean-blue eyes thoughtful.

Lined in a dim yellow glow, Kristoff gradually stopped shaking and relaxed. Jaime timidly bumped his nose against Kristoff’s leg and the big man reached over and scratched Jaime’s rump, making the wolf-boy thump his tail blissfully.

Jaime let them know that the food had arrived when he got up suddenly and beat the air with his blurring tail. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the lunch on Elsa’s balcony, but a famished Jaime could hardly wait for the platters to be set down.

“If my Lady will consent to wait, a more fitting feast can be prepared,” the Captain offered.

Jaime’s wolf ears perked up excitedly, but Kristoff wrestled him fondly.

“Don’t be greedy. There’s plenty already! You won’t be able to finish it all.”

Elsa smiled at the captain. 

“Thank you. We think we have enough.”

The maids watched in horrified fascination as Jaime snapped his jaws at a small mountain of drumsticks, his powerful jaws loudly cracking bones even as he grunted merrily.

With Jaime distracted, Jack turned to Elsa.

“The sooner your Council makes its decision, the sooner Kristoff can take Jaime home.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Kristoff reminded him softly though his brown eyes were unyielding.

“We can’t leave Jaime here!”

Kristoff hesitated, but he pushed through his doubts.

“Jaime’s not a child anymore, he can get home on his own. He got here just fine. Besides, I’d be very surprised if Mrs. Bennett hasn’t got the pack tracking him. He only has to get as far as the edge of the Summer Ways.”

“I don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about this,” Jack growled as Anna and Elsa exchanged glances.

“We need you, you idiot! The Kingdom-folk have two princesses and a prince, but we only have one future pack leader, and that’s you!”

Jack gaped at him.

“What?” Kristoff demanded sulkily, “You didn’t know? You don’t see how much the pack loves you and listens to you? You didn’t notice how everyone wants to join the hunts that you lead? What do you think Jaime’s waiting for? He wants to be _your_ shaman!”

Jack stared, his mouth working wordlessly.

He tensed when Jaime abruptly looked up, but no one was more startled than the guards when the big silver wolf bounded cheerfully towards the palace without warning.

“Hey!”

“Stop!”

“He’s attacking the-”

A copper-haired man appeared spontaneously around the corner and Jaime pounced. The man didn’t stand a chance. A burst of snow crystals puffed from one hand, but Jaime had already tackled him to the ground, his muzzle sniffing hungrily at the man’s neck.

Guards raced to aid the pinned man, the captain pulling ahead.

“Prince Hans!” he cried, spear raised.

“Jack!” Kristoff yelled, but Jack was already brandishing his staff in a blaze of magic. Magic ice sigils glittered from Elsa’s fingertips but Anna caught her hands.

“Anna!”

“Neither Jack nor Jamie have hurt anyone!”

A barrage of snowballs, incandescent with magic, pelted the guards. They stumbled, but managed to charge a few more steps before they slowed and stopped. Unseen, blue glittering lights danced before their eyes, and cheeky, mischievous smiles stole across their faces. One guard shoved his neighbour who tumbled onto the grass with a laugh. Another dropped his spear and hugged the man next to him who cheerily returned the gesture. The captain was stripping off his armour across from his second-in-command who was doing the same, while the other guards formed a ring around them chanting, “Wrestle! Wrestle! Wrestle!”

Elsa turned incredulously to Jack but he was glaring intently at her.

“Jamie’s not the sort to hurt anyone!”

“Elsa wouldn’t have hurt anyone, either!” Anna shot back.

“Let’s just check on Hans,” Elsa interposed between them firmly, and they rushed to the fallen prince.

They found Hans supine beneath a very naked and a very pleased human-shaped Jamie.

“I found the scent!”

“What… are you doing, Jamie!” Kristoff demanded, breathing a little hard.

Jack was already pulling on Jamie’s arm, but the wolf-boy clung to Hans with a pout.

“But this is the scent! The special scent of my special someone!”

Past feeling embarrassed, Anna peered down at Hans' completely blank face and tried not to laugh.

“What does he mean? Special scent of his special someone? He can’t mean-”

“He _doesn’t_ mean that,” Kristoff rumbled meaningfully at Jamie, but Jamie shook his head vigorously.

“Mum said I’d be able to smell it. Because I’m pre-ter-na-tural-ly gifted. Which means I can smell things most people can’t smell. This is the scent that completes mine!”

“...Jack?” Elsa began, uncertain of what to make of Jamie’s earnest expression and Hans’ stony one. Hans caught Elsa staring and his face composed itself into a veneer of politeness.

“I’m not sure what is going on, but is this a friend of the estimable Jack Frost and our legendary Guide? The one I’ve heard has graced us with his presence rather unexpectedly?”

“Yes,” Anna answered immediately, her expression suspiciously grave.

“And I’m sure there is a very good reason why this friend has accosted me. Without any clothes on.”

“I believe he has tragically decided to court you, Prince Hans. Are congratulations in order?”

“They are not in order!” Jack snapped and pried Jamie off of Hans, though the wolf-boy continued to beam at the prince.

“Nice to meet you! My name’s Jamie! Do you want to go hunting some time?”

Anna hid a grin very badly and tried to look as stern as she could.

“Probably not a good idea. Prince Hans is more likely to hunt his friends than hunt with them.” 

Hans picked himself up and straightened his clothes- pointlessly as the snow silk continued to run smoothly over his form, as much as it could where ice grew out of him. He presented a courteous smile beyond reproach, but his eyes beheld each of them with the unblinking coldness of a dead fish. Except when he passed quickly over Jamie. Elsa caught a flicker there, but it was gone before she could be certain.

“Whatever happened to the guards?” Hans questioned, looking between Jack and Elsa to see the Flameguards guffawing and horsing around. He turned to Elsa, “A spell of yours, Princess Elsa? Or is it perhaps yet another one of Jack Frost’s many surprising talents?”

“Well that’s rude,” Anna pretended to pout. “Couldn’t it be mine?”

Hans’ smile froze for a second, then he dipped into a smooth bow.

“But of course, Princess Anna, it may well have been. I have the utmost respect for your Gift. I’m just surprised that the guards entrusted with our safety could be so lax in their duty. The Council must know of this. There can be no excuse for such dereliction.”

Jamie frowned in confusion. The others paled.

“The magic is mine,” Jack declared, eyeing Hans as if he were a weevil in his turnip. “They can’t help themselves right now. If you need to tattle on anyone, you can go ahead and tattle on me.”

Hans was the very picture of contriteness.

“I would never! There’s been a most unfortunate misunderstanding. I was merely expressing concern for the safety of our Fifth Caste, our honoured nobles, who rely on the vigilance of our guards for their security and peace of mind-”

Jamie freed himself from Jack’s loosened grip and went over to Hans who stepped back nervously.

“Hey, why do you smell of blood?”

Now Elsa was sure. That was the flash of fear in his green eyes. Hans’ smile didn’t even return.

“I don’t see why-”

“No, I smell it. Blood. Inside of you. You’re hurt! Did I hurt you?”

Hans’ face hardened into an iron mask.

“I am quite fine, thank you.” He bowed neatly. “Please do not allow me to detain you any further from your… festivities.”

Anna watched him turn smartly around and briskly return the way he came.

“Well, that’s disaster averted,” she concluded with an inquiring look at Elsa.

Elsa sighed heavily and shook her head, turning instead to watch the captain helping yet another beaten guard to his feet.

“Who’s next?” the man bellowed, teeth flashing in a hungry smile.

The disappointment vanished from Jaime’s face and he spun around and waved to the captain.

“Me! Me!” 

“Jaime! At least put on some clothes first- oh, Fenrir's balls!”

Anna smiled commiseratingly at Kristoff, while Elsa looked over to Jack.

“The something else up your sleeve?” she guessed.

Jack grinned at her.

“I guess the surprise is ruined.”

“How long are they going to be that way?”

They all turned to see Jaime grapple the captain to the ground to the hooting delight of his men.

“I was in a hurry, so maybe a couple more minutes. Maybe we should start hiding those spears and crossbows...”

* * *

It turned out that they didn’t have to. Between the mortification of the captain and his guards, and the fact that Jaime had bonded with them in the buff and was now somewhere between “that weird wolf-kid” and “just one of the guys”, hostility seemed silly. Jaime even managed a minor miracle- he relaxed the guards enough to partake in some of the roasted ptarmigan wings, though they still did so standing.

It took a little bit of wrangling on Elsa’s part, but since Jaime had no objections to quartering with Jack, and Elsa vouched for his good behaviour, Jaime was allowed to stay for the time being.

“You know what that means...” Anna began, beaming at Elsa who nodded.

Kristoff looked between them.

“We need more ptarmigan?”

“No! Jack’s obviously rising in their estimation. They may as well have acknowledged he’s a prince!” Anna squealed. “They should just get to it already. So stubborn.”

“I heard the Elder wanted to, but some members insisted that if they were going to that, they needed to properly check what your lineage actually is,” Elsa shared, “so they’re digging up all the past records and gathering any testimonies on nobles who might have any… loose ends, in terms of their bloodline. They’re working really hard but there’s also a lot to go through. I don’t expect they’ll be done by this week, or even next, depending.”

Jack was behind Elsa’s modesty screen, adjusting the final touches of Jamie’s ensemble. He looked over the intrigued wolf-boy and shooed him away with a smug grin. Kristoff whistled and Elsa clapped as Jamie shlyly tottered out. Anna hugged him impulsively. 

For all his wide-eyed innocence and wild, untamed hair, Jamie wore the sheer white linen shirt like how the young, pampered nobles at court dreamt of looking.

His hunt-honed physique added a blush of colour to the thin fabric, just as his lean but sinewy frame contoured the wide drape of the shirt and its full, luxurious sleeves that narrowed into fitting cuffs. The silver-embroidered waistcoat that hugged his torso bared the lines of lupine energy that channeled gracefully down his tight core to the powerful curves of his waist and hips. The white stock tie, tucked underneath his chin, tilted his head up at a dignified angle, and invited the eye to linger on the sensual lines of his jaw. The ends of his stock tie pleated elegantly down the gentle swell of his chest, while the dark emerald pin that held the tie in place glowed with age and distinction. Its depth beautifully offset the soft green of young grass that was the hue of his waistcoat, silver threads tracing over it like the fine morning dew of Spring. His breeches were a matching shade, laced in bright gold cord along the outer legs and at the kneebands, tapering just above the rolled down top cuffs of his leather riding boots- creamy ivory over a rich chocolate brown. 

“Now that’s what I call an ornament to the court!” Anna approved, leaning back to take it all in again.

“To think just moments ago you were rolling around on the lawn, buck naked, wrestling the guards,” Kristoff quipped, making the Servitors watching them stare mutedly at the scandalised Flameguards.

Anna flapped a dismissive hand at him.

“Please… that’s exactly the sort of thing that will have the ladies and gentlemen flocking to him at the ball. The crowd at the Westergaard Tribe’s parties in particular.”

“I thought you didn’t like Hans,” Elsa pointed out a little more loudly than she needed to as she patted a very pleased Jamie on his head.

“His family’s parties shouldn’t suffer for his unfortunate relation to them,” Anna reasoned with apparent nonchalance, “and his brothers are _delectable_ \- all twelve of them. Though not nearly as delicious as you, Jamie.”

Jack emerged with a self-satisfied smirk.

“I remembered what the younger guys were wearing last night, and went with my instincts. I take it that I chose well, my Ladies?” 

Jack flourished a mock bow and Kristoff shoved him lightly. 

Anna curtsied gravely.

“You honour our family well, brother mine.”

When Jack quirked an eyebrow, Elsa bit back a grin and explained.

“A common trait among heirs, aside from our magic, is supposedly our unerring instinct for fashion. We are the only ones who can weave the snow fabrics. Then there's the belief that sartorial excellence could be an inherited trait, as part of our alleged royal charisma.” 

Anna clapped in sudden realisation.

“Jack needs his own princely outfit!” She turned to him, turquoise eyes sparkling excitedly. “The Council probably won’t let us borrow from the Royal Vault, so we’ll have to weave one ourselves. C’mon! Let’s get you measured! Elsa! My family sent us some pieces in Kristoff’s size. I’ll leave him to you. Alright, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

As Anna steered a dumbfounded Jack out of the room, Jamie following closely behind, Elsa shook her head and turned to Kristoff with a resigned smile.

“Anna’s always been enthusiastic about clothes. She’s not a peacock- she actually enjoys making clothes more than wearing them. All heirs are obligated to weave clothes for the next heirs to wear, but I believe Anna’s broken the record. Were she not a princess, she’d probably be happiest as a Water Caste seamstress.”

“Do you regret it? Being a princess?” Kristoff asked candidly, a flutter of anxiety in his stomach.

Elsa’s smile didn’t change.

“Come. Let’s get you dressed for the ball.”

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat unwell, and burdened with an unpleasant duty next week. Might need time to recover before the next update.


	5. Belles, Beaus, and Balls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ball's the thing, in which to catch the rhythm of the future King or Queen- but you best be prepared. The knives, however fancy, are out, so you are going to have to step pretty to get out of this ball in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the somewhat late update. I fear ill health and ill circumstances will necessitate a longer period between updates for the final couple of chapters. Please allow for two to three weeks, each, for the following chapters. My humblest apologies. I hope the longer chapter here makes up a little for the longer wait to come.
> 
> Please do enjoy if you can, and forgive me for any and all offence caused by this work.
> 
> Edit: Now on indefinite hiatus.

Hans’ pale green eyes grazed the gilded invite on his dressing table and returned to his reflection. The unblemished white of his snow silk shirt was perfection itself, as was the rare auroral tint he had managed in the smooth fold of his stock tie. And yet… and yet he felt undone.

The boy had smelled blood off him. Well, if the boy was part wolf, it stood to reason. The fake crown cut into Hans' insides almost as fast as the living ice in his body could cauterise the lacerations. You don’t piss blood for months without knowing that, but it was all going to be over soon, if he could just get to the finish line.

Let Ahtohallan choose? What a joke! A magical maze of ice wasn’t going to decide his fate. He hadn’t suffered the whims and manipulations of shameless players of petty palace politics, to then be discarded in a forsaken wilderness at the edge of the world. No, he wasn’t going to quietly die offstage. Even if he had to die the most ignoble of deaths, it would be centre stage, with all the world watching.

But that boy could ruin everything. The weight of his furry wolf body and the hot breath that seemed to melt his command over ice and snow. The sudden glow of transformation, and then the intimate warmth of bare human skin. Flawless skin that slid so comfortably over wispy snow silk covering the twisted abomination of his own body, all but exposing it, firmly embracing it. That branding touch, that scorching hold, it felt as if they burned away every last defence, every last protection. Left him naked.

That boy was dangerous, for all that he appeared to be an empty-headed twit. There were people like that, maids, guards, who functioned more on instinct than any intellect. People who were swiftly swallowed whole and eaten alive by the depraved beast that was the Fifth Caste. As stupid as they were, people like that were a threat. They made everyone look bad and thus quickly became targets. 

But the princesses and that cursed Jack were going to protect that boy. 

Hans sighed. He would just go to the party and savour the cockiness of his brothers, enjoy their act of stoic sacrifice as they endured having their brother offer himself up to Ahtohallan, while they remained behind to suffer all the privileges their blood relation to him afforded. It would make his triumphant return as their King and Master all the more delicious. 

If nothing else, it would take his mind off the wolf-boy.

* * *

The Westergaard Tribe’s sudden catapult into prominence was a scandal for many reasons. Before he was granted the title of Duke Westergaard, he was a minor baron better known as Westergaard the Honey Bandit. They say he stuck his honey dipper in so many honey pots that he was bound to have plunged out an heir presumptive to the throne. More cynical souls wondered if that was his sweet strategy all along. Plant his seed in some poor lower Caste girl, until he struck gold. 

His… allies, for lack of a better word, would say it made perfect sense. The only talent the Honey Bandit had was his virility, and what a talent it was. The thirteen sons he had was just the official count, according to some, and that he had two, three dozen more daughters whose mothers he’s silenced. Others said he simply had a charmed honey dipper, and that he would always sire sons. Whatever the truth, when Hans manifested the Royal Gift at five, the Honey Bandit became _His Grace_ , the Honey Bandit, and even his twelve older sons profited from the simple sale of the youngest. The Honourable Jan, Per, Bjørn, Ola, Kjell, Arne, Lars, Knut, Svein, Odd, Tor, and Geir became Lords Jan, Per, Bjørn, Ola, Kjell, Arne, Lars, Knut, Svein, Odd, Tor, and Geir, overnight. 

They were bestowed a new residence in one of the ducal quarters, the lofty Hall of Soaring Dawn, traditionally bestowed upon the family of the oldest heir presumptive. East-facing, it had a spectacular view of the dawn, which displeased the new Duke. How much better it would have been, the Duke is fond of remarking to his guests, to have the west-facing Hall of Falling Twilight, and have a view of the Western Sea, where the midnight sun would have made a stunning centrepiece for all his parties. Nevertheless, he made do with the moon and the aurora, and the snowy peaks of the east, and with the generous compensation he received directly from the royal coffers, the revelers at his balls suffered little and did so constantly.

But this night was different. Word had spread of the guests-of-honour, and from every grasping courtier to every preening luminary, just about everyone peacocked in a collective display that would have out-dazzled the sun. Feathers from far off lands, airy silks from across three oceans, and jewels that could have been cast into the heavens to inspire entire new constellations, plumed, floated, and glimmered in a haze of warring potent fragrances that had already started a body count. Servants were on standby to clear the ballroom floor of any casualties who were relocated to cushions conveniently placed next to large, open windows. Aside from that and the occasional flash fire wherever a high concentration of perfume fumes collected around a candle, the party was going well. 

By the dictates of tradition, Elsa and Anna were required to be fashionably late, despite having gotten ready comfortably in advance. They were all gathered in Anna’s room, mainly because Anna had to custom-make and go over Jack’s outfit one last time before she picked out something for herself, and because Elsa and Kristoff had finished much sooner and had gone over to help.

Anna hovered like a restless bee over Jack, pinching a hem that didn’t need crisping, and straightening a cuff that didn’t need straightening.

“Enough!” Jack declared at last. “Anna, I love the outfit. It’s perfect. You couldn’t possibly improve it.”

Anna turned to Elsa nervously.

“You think? I want us to make a great first impression.”

Elsa rose and took Anna’s hands in hers.

“Take a deep breath.”

“Hooooo-haaaaa…”

“Now tell me what you see.” 

Anna looked over Jack critically. Kristoff followed her eyes, having nothing better to do.

Despite everything, he was impressed. Jack looked fine. More than fine, he looked the part- but not the part Kristoff had expected. Anna had eschewed the traditional court dress and gone for something decidedly inspired from the Wild Ways. Only the carefully combed mess of Jack’s platinum fringe was visible underneath a soft cowl- one as luminous as virgin snow embraced by moonlight. Made out of leather-like snow skin, it cast Jack’s hydrangea-blue eyes in mysterious shadow. Next to the furry hoarfrost that lined the edge of the peaked cowl, Jack’s grin was remarkably wolvish, the tufted wolf ears crowning his hood underscoring the effect. Snowflake charms, shaped into the clan marks of the Wild Ways, hung in twin chains that were pinned with puncturing claw nails of ice to the points of the steeply angled ears. Even with Jack’s head held still, they trailed the air like gossamer lace, drawing the eye to the magnificent pauldrons dominating his shoulders. If a wolf tail that massive and illusory truly existed, it could only have belonged to the Hunter of the Long Night, Fenrir himself. Intricately woven out of a single thread of glistening ice, then reinforced with Elsa’s magic to be as hard as permafrost, vivid lines of a hollow frame captured the primal supremacy of an alpha’s tail as it mantled Jack. Enchanted ice crystals refracted light into the negative space, filtering prismatic fibers into an iridescent pelt. Beneath it, a white laminar cuirass accentuated his lithe chest and slender midriff. Its curving strips of hardened snow skin covered his abdomen in overlapping plates that mirrored the swell of firm muscles beneath. 

Stamped into the curved edge of each plate were the clan marks stylised into an elaborate border. A pair of icicle buckles shaped like snowflakes studded each plate, a chain of frost linking all of them together like a laced bodice. The ends of the chain tethered to a thin belt of ice pearled from within with swirl after swirl of a myriad frozen bubbles, as if the whale-devouring Jörmungandr thrashed within. Hanging from the ominous belt were plated tassets lined in hoarfrost that covered his outer thighs, back to front, and which matched the bracers, greaves and calf-high boots crafted of the same hardened snow skin; each stamped with the clan marks motif, each studded with more icicle buckles. The luminous leather of his leggings was more supple, the loose fabric creasing with just enough free space to help the wolf shepherd manoeuvre the untamed wilderness.

Roomy sleeves of snow silk guaranteed the same freedom for his arms, inviting Jack to wield his potent staff as he pleased, while tidy, crisp cuffs ensured they wouldn’t get in his way. As if proving the point, Jack twirled his crooked staff and conjured a light flurry of snowflakes. Whoever they touched they soothed, even coaxing smiles from the Flameguards watching them at the corners of the room. As a snowflake kissed his nose, Kristoff saw in his sworn brother the Good Light of legend- a reverse psychopomp who guided the dying to new life, a foil of peace to the valorous valkyries who bore the brave just as he shepherded the meek. In the brutal Wild Ways, where life could end so easily in cold, hunger and pain, the Good Light was the warm hug of your mother rocking you to sleep, he was the safety of your father’s strong arms as he kept your fears at bay, he was the affection of close friends and siblings holding your hand. The Good Light made it alright.

Anna had chosen symbols of dread to flaunt Jack’s defiance, but it was his tenderness that shone forth.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Kristoff prompted a sedated Anna.

“Yeah… maybe…” Anna turned to him and smiled, “You look gorgeous by the way. Did I tell you?” 

Kristoff blushed and swept his gaze self-consciously over his copper-gold vest and breeches.

“Y-you look okay, too.” 

Jack rolled his eyes.

Anna giggled.

“Why thank you, kind Sir. Sadly, I have not had the good fortune of an escort for this evening...”

“Huh? Aren’t we all- OW!”

A block of ice had inexplicably fallen out of thin air onto his foot.

Elsa looked firmly away as Kristoff picked up the numbing block and found that words were cutting themselves into the surface.

“‘I… beg… the honour... of... escorting you... to the ball... my Lady-” Kristoff read aloud then looked up and jolted out of his seat. As if he were recalling the ones he’d seen, he gave Anna a jerky bow. 

“I beg the honour of escorting you to the ball, my Lady!”

He looked up in alarm at a loud thud and found Jack pounding the arm of his couch in an effort to contain his laughter. Anna’s face had turned blank though her lips quivered suspiciously. Jamie looked at him in glimmering wonderment. Even the Flameguards coughed loudly, straining to pretend that they had taken ill and were definitely not laughing. In fact only the Servitors, having the benefit of masks, could pretend that the snorts of mirth hadn’t come from them. Elsa was still refusing to make eye contact.

Kristoff flushed but Anna swept up to him and took his arm.

“I’d be delighted.”

Jaime clapped and leapt to his feet.

“I want to escort Anna too!”

“I don’t-” Kristoff began but Anna hooked an arm around Jaime’s and pulled the beaming wolf-boy to her side.

“Now I’ll have twice as much fun!” Anna crowed.

“Yes!” Jaime cheered.

Kristoff deflated in a sigh.

Elsa ran her gaze over them and snuck an adoring smile. Something made her flick her eyes to Jack and she found him grinning at her, a twinkle in his eyes. Rising to his feet, he lowered himself in a fluid bow and offered his arm to her.

“Will my Lady indulge the brazenness of youth and permit me to be her devoted servant this evening?”

Elsa turning faintly pink and, intensely aware of Anna and the others watching her for her response, murmured softly, “I would be most obliged.”

Jack straightened as Elsa took his arm through her veil, and found Anna wrinkling her nose, though her eyes sparkled with amusement.

“You sounded just like Hans.”

Jack grimaced as Kristoff chuckled.

“Anything but that.” 

Jamie’s eyes flashed eagerly.

“Is Hans going to be there? Cool! I want to smell him again!”

The boys scowled at him.

“No sniffing that man!”

“He’s dangerous! He pointed a crossbow at me!”

“He _shot_ at me.”

Jamie’s head shrank back.

“Awwww…”

“In any case, I doubt you’ll be getting anyone’s scent. The air will be toxic with perfume,” Anna informed them as they headed to the door and the guards fell into formation around them.

“And gossip,” Elsa added grimly.

“Delightful,” Jack muttered and Elsa smiled at him commiseratingly.

“At least the food will be good.”

Kristoff brightened. Anna laughed and bumped his arm with her shoulder teasingly.

“But we’ve just had dinner.”

“Just a quick one!” Kristoff protested, “You said we couldn’t have too much or our breeches wouldn’t button.”

“That’s what the dancing is for,” Anna explained patiently, “working up an appetite.”

“If you’re going to work up Kristoff’s appetite, I hope you’ve enough food to feed an army,” Jack quipped, “because Kristoff’s appetite doesn’t need any help.”

“The Westergaard Tribe parties are not known for their restraint,” Elsa assured him, “guests tend to leave their tables quite surfeited.”

“Both their stomach and their eyes,” Anna added archly.

Jack turned from one princess to the other and nodded approvingly.

“In that case, I’d say we’re bringing the main course to the party.”

Anna freed an arm to slap the back of Jack’s hand playfully.

“Impertinence! We ladies aren’t dishes for men to sample!”

“Every man’s a wolf,” Jack countered with a feral grin, “and was there ever a wolf who didn’t enjoy a little chase?”

“I like a little chase!” Jamie announced frankly, making all of them laugh.

But Jack wasn’t wrong.

When Princess Anna was announced (along with Kristoff and Jaime), a hush fell over the ballroom as people held their breaths, and not just because the air wasn’t fit for breathing.

Anna floated in beneath a veil lighter than spring mist woven between fresh drops of morning dew. It was lighter than the fingers of dawn combing through the wispy trees of the palace gardens, touching dancing motes with gold. It was lighter than the wistful breaths of star-crossed lovers, forced to whisper the words of love forbidden into the susurrations of spring. It would have drifted away upon the sighs of admiration had a coif not held it in place, where it contented to swell like the shimmering sails of a celestial ship, or the ethereal wings of a spectral swan. Atop the coif, a tiara-like hood fanned out in the slightly dated style of the southeastern kingdoms, a dazzling disc of icicle tines strung with delicate pearls of frozen dew. From her ears, tiny cascades of glittering ice shards descended in a shower of crystalline ice. In their illumination, the rosiness of her cheeks were set off by a white lace choker of purest silk snow, centred with a glorious glacial gem of stunning emerald green, and taselled with lesser drops of soft milky jade.

Cradling her body like a white rose was an intricate lace bodice lined underneath with soft snow skin. Like a petal, it swept up from her narrow waist to unfurl over her chest in luxurious arches brimming with a pouting lip of frosted lace. Full oversleeves draped from her shoulder to almost all of her arm, but for the width of a suitor’s perch upon her forearm, mere inches from where such a suitor might feel her pulse race. There her foresleeves in underlined lace hid all but the tips of her fingers in fluted delicacy, while the oversleeves themselves were crested with lavish pursed lace, turned longingly towards the tempting curves of her neck. Kristoff stopped himself before a cliff’s edge that no one else could spy, while Anna glided effortlessly to the balustrade of the mezzanine without him. As her arm stretched to hold her purchase on his, she turned to him, the criss-crossing ribbons tracing down the back of her bodice curved alluringly along her spine. Her insubstantial veil played tauntingly against the line of his jaw. He refocused on her.

With so much scrutiny on them, Anna mouthed his name discreetly, her urging eyes the spectacular blue of a riot of forget-me-nots.

He smiled and stepped up to her, sparing no interest for the thronging nobles below. His warm gaze fell entirely over her.

“I’m here.”

* * *

“He likes her,” Jack blurted, turning a sidelong glance at Elsa, “I don’t know if he realises it yet, but he’s been looking at her a lot in the past… day- has it only been one day? Wow. He sure is fast.” 

“Kristoff is sweet,” Elsa conceded, “but heirs don’t allow themselves to fall in love. We’re not in control of our destiny.”

“Who is?” Jack rejoined. “The heart still can’t help itself.”

“Which is why it is ruled by reason,” Elsa countered.

“Is that how your heart is ruled?” Jack asked, a grin playing on his lips from within his cowl.

Elsa ignored the creeping blush against her nape and answered primly.

“Yes, it is.”

The liveried footmen bowed and parted the grand doors of the antechamber, bidding them through with a bow.

They had barely passed the threshold when a herald hollered in a superior tone the princess would never dare employ.

“Her Royal Highness, Princess Elsa of the Northuldra Tribe and her escort, His Presumptive Highness, Jack Frost of the Wolf-folk.”

“Someone’s a wit, I see,” Jack muttered out of the corner of his mouth. 

Elsa’s face remained frozen in a mask of indifference, but she calmly murmured back to him, 

“Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

And the sting was lessened when the smirks were wiped off the faces of the gathered nobles as they witnessed his resplendent entrance. Then Jack’s mouth twisted in a self-mocking grin as he chided himself. 

_'Not mine, but hers...'_

It was as if the rings around the moon had descended upon the princess, casting down with them a shimmering net of snowing stars. Tilted back longingly over her platinum-blonde tresses, the floating rings of silvery magical ice spun languidly within each other, clinking softly as they kissed one another in their dance- all but the outermost ring. The largest argent ring silently braced the diaphanous veil of falling stars, which slipped slightly higher in front to reveal a glimpse of her pooling dress. Sheathed in the glittering aegis of her cascading veil, Elsa strode forward to the balustrade, her sparkling snow silk gown pouring down her body in flowing layers of pure innocence. Her underdress, an airy chemise, ran beneath the cradling embrace of a bodice held closed with a glistening lattice of frosted ribbon. The long, flowing sleeves of her overdress tapered just above her elbows where glacial blue armlets, shaped in an exquisite frieze of arctic starflowers in full bloom, clasped the layered sleeves together. Atop her brow, a filigree diadem, crafted into the face of a breathtaking dew-jewelled woman wreathed in beguiling locks of hair, ran sublimely across her high forehead, the radiant ice holding in place a delicate hood of white hoarfrost that swept as a cape all the way down to her train. Jack had touched the diadem with the whimsy of his magic, and the beautiful woman’s curls shifted capriciously- much like the real Ahtohallan herself, Anna had explained. The Frost spirit’s mazes were an impenetrable enigma that defied description for they were never the same. A torc of swirling snowflakes, carved from glacier ice of the most glorious blue, arced elegantly around her neck, just above the ribbon ties of Elsa’s hoarfrost cloak laced together in a sacred eternity knot. Where she stood, the nobles turned to her, like dusk flowers drawn to moonlight. In Jack’s eyes, she glowed like the maiden daughter of the Man in the Moon, stealing away from her celestial abode for one night to roam the mortal realms and learn about the thousands of flickering lives that rushed and dragged, bloomed and faded. And who was he in this scenario? A huntsman in service to the Man in the Moon sent to protect her from the shadows, to ensure that she came to no harm. For indeed, she was inviolable innocence and naivety in equal measure, and more than anything else, Jack admitted only in the secret depths of his heart, transcendental beauty. 

Together, they commanded the grand mezzanine, the feral wolf-shepherd next to the serene moon-blessed maiden. Was she captive to his savage instincts, or he tamed by her gentle arts? From his cocky grin to her calm grace, the nobles couldn’t tell. Nor could they tell if it was all a dream. Elsa’s ethereal silhouette and Jack’s surreal presence could have been a hallucination, a vision brought about by powerful fumes and the magic of the night. Impulsively, Jack turned to her as bold as the frost on river stones, and bowed low to kiss her hand before she could offer it. Elsa flushed and tapped his cheek with her kissed hand for his cheek. Jack drew himself up with an apologetic grin. Holding his staff aloft, he slammed it into the marble floor, tendrils of frost racing up and out between them to etch the intricate contours of a glistering horse crowned with a single noble horn. Shutting his eyes tight, the wolf-shepherd concentrated as his frost sculpture shimmered even more brilliantly at its edges, the light washing over its entire equine body. With a snort, the ice unicorn’s eyes flashed with life. In wonderment, Elsa approached the magical creature, faltering as it turned to face the moon-blessed maiden, then lowered its horn to her feet. With a wry grin at Jack, Elsa knelt down and caressed the cheek of the handsome creature. A shiver rippled through the unicorn as its frost tracery filled with sinews of sparkling fresh snow, while within the twinkling outline of the unicorn’s crest and tail, a magnificent mane of hoarfrost joined a lustrous tail of the same wintry elegance.

Jack whooped and clapped, but the nobles below could only marvel speechlessly as the living legend reared on its powerful hind legs and pawed the air, whinnying in wild triumph. As it stamped its hooves down again, Elsa sent her tipped halo and its spilling veil into Jack’s free hand as she nuzzled the unicorn’s face. With a graceful curve of its neck, the unicorn gestured to its back and Elsa turned to Jack, ocean-blue eyes wide with shock yet betraying a glint of thrill.

Jack winked at her and lifted his crooked staff. A path of ice curved up from the lip of the balustrade to weave the outline of a great rose blooming just beside the scintillating chandeliers dripping from the ceiling. Elsa shook her head at him, but swirls of magic lifted her to rest, sidesaddle, upon their unicorn. As soon as she leaned forward to clasp her hand over its elegant neck, the unicorn whinnied and mounted the path with a nimble jump. 

As it cantered up the arcing path, Elsa’s cloak fluttered behind her, her hood billowing in the wind. Jack laughed and danced upon the slipstream, coaxing it with his staff to give chase. When the wolf-shepherd drew level with Elsa, she chortled with glee and let a pulse of blue trickle out of her fingers into the unicorn. Ice dust plumed into the air as the mythic stallion shot forward. Jack gasped in outrage, then made a beeline for the summit with a snicker. Elsa was seconds away from racing to the top innermost petals of the great rose, when Jack landed there first on a gust of spiralling snow dust.

“Cheater,” she accused and Jack laughed, tapping his staff and conjuring twin thorny rose vines that reached down to the ballroom floor. Pairs of thorns merged to form step after step until a full spiral staircase touched down upon the polished tiles. Stretching her arm to him, Elsa let Jack help her down from her noble steed. Standing on tiptoe, Jack balanced her floating halo back above her head. Elsa spared a final rub of the unicorn’s glistening body before she took Jack’s hand and arched her brow wickedly. Thrusting her free hand forward, the vine steps snapped at an angle, instantly creating a smooth, shiny slide to the ground.

Jack grinned mischievously back at her, just as Anna, Kristoff, and Jaime squeezed past the hastily parting crowd to stagger up to the sudden slide.

“Elsa!” Anna exclaimed, her tone belying the excited twinkle in her eyes.

Jaime squirmed like he wanted to wag a tail he didn’t currently have while Kristoff slapped a hand over his eyes.

“C’mon- you’ve gotta be joking…” 

With a click of their heels, ice coated the soles of their shoes and they shared one last glance before they took a step- 

“WOOOOOAAH- AHAHAHAH! THIS IS WILD!”

“THIS IS CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY!”

The world untethered itself and the universe reeled madly around them. Elsa’s sleeves and veil streamed behind her like a glorious blaze, Jack’s chains clinking freely alongside, their hands clasped tightly together. The ground rushed towards them faster than they’d thought, and they skid over it with a jolt that flung them together. Instinctively, they held on, breaths melting into each other as the force of their tight spin pressed their bodies close.

Anna gripped Kristoff until he winced. Jamie was speechless with awe.

When Jack and Elsa finally came apart, they slid away from one another, the ice on their soles slowly sublimating into the air. Breathless, the ghost of a smile faded from Elsa’s face as she glanced self-consciously at the ringing nobles. Jack grunted a laugh and swept her a perfect bow which he promptly ruined with a flippant quip.

“Much obliged, my Lady, for the honour of this first dance.”

Loud barking laughter made them both look up.

A ruddy-faced man in a massive gold-trimmed purple coat and breeches surfaced from the crowd like a creature from the depths. His impressive moustache and nearly vanished chin gave him the appearance of a pompous walrus, as he all but trampled over a few courtiers who were slow to get out of his way.

“Your Highnesses,” he rumbled with a slight bow.

Anna’s eyes flickered to Elsa’s flushed face, and intercepted the man with a practised smile.

“Duke Westergaard! We were delighted to receive your invitation.” 

“Truly, the delight has been mine! What a wonderful spectacle! We’ve never seen anything like it- which is saying something,” the Duke guffawed, turning charming brown eyes to the crowd. Almost on cue, a dozen richly dressed men stepped out from the crowd.

“And of course your Highnesses will remember my sons?” Duke Westergaard ventured with a wide sweep of his arm.

The Twelve Lords of Westergaard bowed deeply.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” they chorused, as Kristoff and Jack exchanged a look.

Anna smiled for Elsa and herself and took a deep breath.

“Lord Jan, Lord Per,” she smiled to the two fathers, then turned to the other husbands of the group, “Lord Bjørn, Lord Ola, Lord Arne,” she turned to nod at the bookish loner, “Lord Kjell,” the hunting enthusiasts, “Lord Lars, Lord Knut,” then the reprobate trio “Lord Svein, Lord Odd, and Lord Tor”, and the soft-featured one who was apparently the splitting image of his Wind Caste mother, “Lord Geir,” she finished with a near gasp for air, “how wonderful to see all of you in such excellent spirits!”

“Indeed we have much recovered from the excitement of the night before-” Lord Odd began with a roguish grin not unlike the one his father used to have, so the courtiers gossiped amongst themselves.

“Which is a very good thing because we’d have been utterly floored by that trick with the horsey otherwise-” Lord Tor interrupted as his brother, Lord Svein, threw his head back in raucous laughter, as if Tor had said the funniest thing ever.

“ _Unicorn,_ ” Lord Lars corrected, exchanging a sharp, challenging glance with Lord Knut whose fingers twitched as if they itched for a crossbow. 

Lord Geir scowled, looking, as always, as if he was frozen in a shrug, the over-padded shoulders of his jacket not quite adding the manly bulk he presumed it did.

“I prefer a black fjord charger myself,” he answered absolutely no one, “more for a man.”

“You must excuse my brothers,” Jan stepped in with a mild smile, “they mean to wish you well on your Pilgrimage and bid you farewell.”

“Come now, it’s still too early for that,” Lord Per protested, “there are many merriments to be had before any goodbyes.”

"Though some of us don’t have lowcaste wives to confine in our chambers where they can’t keep an eye on us,” Lord Bjørn muttered not quite under his breath. Anna spied Baroness Kari, decked in black opals and a high-collared dress studded with flashing onyxes, doing all womankind a favour and watching her husband intently. Lord Bjørn had an unseemly habit of allowing his hands to roam where they weren’t welcome.

Lord Ola looked out for his own wife, Lady Marit, who was fortunately occupied at the moment with a ptarmigan wing, though his brother-in-law, Count Erik, and his partner, Sir Francis, smiled humourlessly at him. Clearing his throat, he stood as primly as his brother.

Lords Arne and Kjell were the only sons who seemed as restless as Anna and her friends felt. Lord Arne kept sneaking glances at his new bride, who seemed just as love-struck as him, which made Anna smile. Lord Kjell was probably sneaking wistful glances in the direction of the private library, which made Elsa smile, much to Anna’s amusement.

“Come now, boys,” Duke Westergaard chided, “don’t just pile your plates with sweetmeats- there are perfectly fine gentlemen waiting to make your acquaintance.”

Anna had to hide a snicker as Kristoff looked quite crestfallen as the Duke turned to him. 

“You must forgive my sons. They lose their head around a pretty lady- and some of them with wives too! BAWHARHARHAR!” 

Kristoff smiled queasily, while Jack leaned in with interest. 

“Are they courting the princesses?”

Duke Westergaard roared with laughter and the eavesdropping nobles tittered along with him. 

The Wild Ways young men turned to each other in confusion. Anna cleared her throat a little louder than she needed to.

“The heirs may not marry, not even if they become Queen or King,” she explained, for some reason glancing at Kristoff.

“But they may take lovers,” Svein sang, earning himself fresh pockets of tittering from the nobles, and an elbow from his eldest brother.

“Few do,” Elsa informed Jack, “the burden of preparing for the Pilgrimage is heavy enough- and the crown weighs even more.”

“What is this? What is this? Why all this heavy talk?” the walrus duke boomed. He clapped sharply, and barked to the ballroom in general, “Come! Let us have music! Let us have dancing!”

Minor panic rippled through the crowd as the forced strains of music started falteringly, and the nobles tried to simultaneously twirl in spontaneous dance and jostle closer to the royal party, ready to step in the moment the Duke and his sons stopped monopolising them. 

Jack signed surreptitiously to Kristoff and Jaime. 

_Ambush._

Jaime looked warily around while Kristoff flashed him a lopsided grin.

 _Your hunt._

The master trekker pointed out, and tried not to sigh as the hungry-eyed Knut asked him if he hunted.

* * *

Hans had decided to go with ice-steel chain mail touched with a few frost accents. There was something decidedly fortifying about fashionable armour. You were protected from knives in the back and mockery behind your back at the same time. The pauldrons with his family crest contoured the outfit a little more impressively, and the stylish cut of the thigh-length unbelted chain shirt, narrow at the waist, complete with his barely frosted breeches contrasted against thick calf-high boots, gave him a saucy, slightly undressed look. He’d considered completing his ensemble with an ice-steel coronet, but he didn’t think even he could hold his laughter in. No, it was better without one. Just the right amount of pathos in it, when he stood beside the regally accoutered princesses, for his brothers to pity him. As-good-as-dead and not much to show for it either. Sad. Just so sad.

A smile cracked his chilling placidity like thin ice splintering on a lake. 

His family footmen couldn’t hide the startlement in their eyes, but they sent the page boy scurrying through the side passage to alert the herald. 

“Prince Hans of Tribe Westergaard!”

A delicious hush spread over the crowd, and Hans strode confidently across the mezzanine-

“IT’S HANS! IT’S HANS! I TOLD YOU I SMELLED HIM!”

Hans gripped the balustrade and leaned down. There, at the centre of the ballroom, beneath a giant rose sculpture, was a young man with messy chestnut hair jumping up and down, waving his arms excitedly.

“HI, HANS! I MISSED SMELLING YOUUUU!”

He spun around smartly, then realised the doors had shut, and three-quarters of the full court had their gazes trained on him. He turned back, a smile spreading slowly across his face. With all the dignity he could muster, he coolly descended the stairs that didn’t seem to end as Jaime yelled from the ballroom floor.

“HANS! IT’S ME! JAIME! Don’t, Kristoff, Hans can’t hear me- HANS! HEY! OVER HERE!”

“For the love of the spirits, Jaime, _everyone_ can hear you!” Kristoff hissed a little too loudly, prompting a couple of snickers.

It was Jan who moved first, the crowd parting awkwardly to let him through.

“Brother… Prince Hans, we’re so glad you decided to come,” he welcomed with a bow.

“I can’t imagine how I could have stayed away,” Hans returned, clasping his brother’s arm in greeting.

Like sullen school children, the rest of Hans’ brothers filed after their eldest sibling, though some were less unenthused. Hans didn’t read too much into it, partially because he was staring sidelong at both Jack and Kristoff who were animatedly restraining Jaime from joining the Westergaard reunion.

Only their father remained with the princesses, laughing and nodding at their light conversation.

Per followed Han’s gaze and sighed.

“You know they’re always watching,” he murmured softly, Per's eyes lifting to the upper corner where a pair of masked Servitors loomed like the tarry servants of Hel. 

Hans beamed at him.

“Don’t give it a moment’s thought!”

_I’ll have my revenge soon enough._

Kjell approached him with surprising forwardness.

“Brother, you have not visited of late.” 

Hans’ lips twitched, but he maintained his smile.

“Alas, I have been detained by my meditations.”

Kjell lowered his head.

“Of course… but-”

“Oh, do stop being such a damp blanket, Kjell, he doesn’t have much time as it is-” Bjørn grumbled, then caught Jan and Per’s warning glare and swallowed the rest of his words.

A smirk slipped onto Hans’ face, and he quickly balanced it. Tor clasped Han’s normal shoulder.

“Hel take the Servitors! It’s our damn party, and we’re dancing with our brother if we want to!”

Odd shoved him jocularly.

“Maybe you’ll dance with Hans! Countess Bente’s daughter has been looking very comely of late…”

“Besides, Hans’ suitor is coming right this way,” Svein jeered with a leer.

The boys turned to see Jamie bounding their way, his older kin behind him, shaking their heads in their hands. In a heartbeat, Jamie had raced over and collided carelessly into Lars and Knut who had shifted pointedly to bar the wolf-boy’s way. Jamie casually grappled them and squeezed his head through the narrow gap between their arms.

“Hans! I told Jack and Kristoff that I smelled you, and they didn’t want to hear it. But you’re here!”

Hans took an involuntary step back as Jan and Per moved to separate the boys. Lords Ola and Arne looked worriedly at the wolf-boy’s older outcaste kin who were headed menacingly their way. Behind even them, Elsa was hurrying after Jack and Kristoff, while Anna appeared to be frantically reassuring the duke who looked between her and the brewing storm, a deep frown etched in his walrus-esque countenance.

A flare of fury burned in Hans and he forced himself to tap his older brothers’ shoulders, making them part uncertainly. Jaime hopped cheerfully up to Hans and sniffed him, his brows wrinkling more sombrely.

“You still smell of blood. Don’t you have healers at the palace?”

Ola and Arne started. Kjell gave him a sharp look. His other brothers regarded him suspiciously, but it was Geir who asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“Are- are you sick?”

“The living ice in my body sometimes cuts,” Hans lied smoothly, “it is of no concern.” 

“Does the Council know this?” Jan asked seriously.

“Of course,” Hans reassured seamlessly. “They presume Ahtohallan will find a way.” 

Bjørn cursed.

“Useless! The whole lot of them!”

Han eyed his brother, his smile barely shifting, then turned his attention to Jack and Kristoff who approached with matching expressions of disgruntled boys denied a deserved treat. Elsa glided serenely behind them, but with the firmness of a strict governess.

“I guess you can dance with Jaime,” Jack growled before anyone could say anything, and Elsa nodded encouragingly. Hans stared at them.

 _“I beg your pardon?”_

“But we’ll be watching you!” Kristoff warned. “Just because you smell right doesn’t mean you get to bite!”

Hans watched in horror as the shameless wolf-boy blushed.

“Kristoff! I’ve never- never- Of course… if Hans wants to, then...” Jamie trailed off, sneaking a peek at Hans.

“There will be no biting!”

“You’re damn right there won’t be!” Kristoff thundered darkly.

“There will be no nothing!” Hans cried, “I am not dancing with your brother!”

Hans’ brothers gasped. 

“But you can’t turn down a sought dance!” Geir protested, “It’d be a mortal insult!”

“Maybe Hans is feeling poorly…” Kjell began doubtfully.

“It’s okay! Hans doesn’t have to dance if he doesn’t feel like it,” Jamie assured them hurriedly, a shy smile on his face. “I’ve just never danced before and… I’ll probably be really bad at it anyway...”

Kristoff and Jack glared at Hans who also found his brothers giving him sidelong glances. He briefly fantasised stabbing all of them in front of the entire ballroom.

Extending an arm gracefully out to Jamie, he stretched a smile like a bowstring drawn close to snapping across his face.

“I beg the honour of this next dance.”

Jamie’s eyes sparkled like amber honey held up against the sun. A pang stabbed unpleasantly where living ice twisted into his abdomen, but Hans barely flinched. Jamie snuck a peek at the other nobles who were starting to hold their partners for the next dance, spurred on by the tentative strains of the Water Caste minstrels who had once more raised their flutes and lifted their lutes. He turned expectantly to Hans who felt sweat beading at his temples. 

“Kristoff!”

The young trekker turned to see Anna beaming at him as she hurried over.

“First dance! You’re my escort, remember?” she explained as he took her outstretched hands in his, “You get to claim the first dance.”

Jack turned to Elsa who nodded shyly.

Kristoff paled.

“But I don’t know how to-”

“It’s easy! I’ll show you,” Anna reassured him with a smile. Meanwhile, Hans’ brothers had stepped away to claim their partners, seek new ones, or in the case of Kjell and Geir, find themselves unable to refuse the bolder ladies at court. As the nobles around them coalesced into pairs, Anna guided Kristoff’s hands around her waist, that felt so small to him in his broad hands, while she slipped her fingers over the firm swells of his upper arms, resting her hands over his broad shoulders. Her touch lit sparks all along its path against his flesh, and his brows came together in the sweet torment. Oblivious, Anna smiled up at him, flicking her eyes briefly to Elsa and Jamie to see them stepping up to their partners just as the music caressed the rhythm in their bodies. Turning back to Kristoff, she smiled, and gently pressed against his shoulder, guiding him with her eyes. Kristoff felt the shift in her hips and turned as she did, his face flushing as her scent filled his consciousness. His feet moved in a mist of enchantment centred upon the forget-me-nots that blossomed in her eyes. He pulled her closer, and a shock ran through both of them. His heart stopped-

Jack peeled away Elsa's veil and cloak, undressing her chaste layers until her courtly gown spilled bare before him. Elsa brushed Jack’s arm with her fingertips, running a thrill of magic through him that sent the fabrics floating high and over to the bowing unicorn atop the conjured rose of mythic immensity. Jack embraced her around her wispy waist as Elsa’s arms rose to his shoulders, their slender grace adorning the simple strength of his. She had just drawn breath to reassure him when he stepped close and slid both of them smoothly into the movement of the dance. His smile was all feral, but his finesse flowed into her body more irresistibly than the pull of the music. His hydrangea eyes never left her face, and Elsa blushed. Her delicate brows lifted in question, and Jack’s pale ones fell over a gaze of unexpected tenderness. 

“You’re my first.” 

The softest of gasps stirred past her lips, but the red of her lips thinned in a smile.

“I’m honoured...”

Hans didn’t see what was so funny.

“Hahaha! Eheheheh!”

The wolf-boy clearly hadn’t danced before, and yet... somehow, somehow, he’d managed to follow Hans’ lead. Not a single step was ill-placed, not a single turn was badly made. But still, he moved like a boy learning a game, tickled by each new discovery, gleeful over every success. 

Hans pressed his lips tight, but a fury threatened to explode from within. Jamie breathed in deeply and leaned his head against Hans’ ice-twisted shoulder, and Hans almost stopped. Jamie sighed contentedly. 

“You smell so good.”

“You’re not frightened?” the words tumbled out of Hans’ mouth before he could stop them.

Jamie shook his head, not looking up.

“So don’t be so scared.”

Hans shook, shooting a glance at the wolf-boy. Hans could only look on as Jamie nuzzled comfortably from his perch.

Elsa was a swirl of snow silk and platinum-blonde tresses, Jack striding gallantly by her side, their fingertips, outstretched to each other, barely touching… and everyone else barely seeing her wink at him, and him winking back. She pressed her fingertips into Jack’s, frost racing over his skin as her power poured into his fingers and down his arm to the shepherd’s staff magically tethered to his back. As her power surged through him, Jack added to it the bubbling fizz of his own power, the wintry streams of their magic converging in his staff and gathering in the jagged arc of his crook into a pulsating orb. At the corners of the ballroom, Servitors jolted into motion- but it was too late. 

The orb burst into a pulse of blue light. Suddenly, millions of runic snowflakes, each as large as a child’s palm, shivered in the air. For a moment, the room glittered like a glacier cave. Then, before the Servitors could react, the snowflakes dissolved into a cascade of blue sparkles. It was over in a glance. The assembled nobles and the alarmed Servitors gazed upon the raining motes of fey lights and their eyes shimmered in response. The throng smiled, then laughed, and then reveled in the sudden childlike abandon they couldn’t believe they had forgotten.

“Hans?” Jamie called worriedly as the prince staggered away from him.

Jack glanced over with a frown, but Elsa found Anna watching her and nodded. She flicked her eyes to Kristoff who gulped nervously but nodded his understanding to her. For a blurring moment, a merry trio twirled ecstatically between Elsa and Anna. After they had giggled away, Elsa caught a glimpse of Kristoff’s blonde hair and broad shoulders ploughing a way through the cavorting crowd.

“Her parents know where to meet her?”

Elsa turned to Jack and nodded, a hint of a smile on her lips. Her gaze strayed to a pair of delightedly prancing young nobles. 

“How long do you think this will last?” Elsa asked.

Jack looked thoughtful.

“Maybe a couple of hours. An hour at least.”

Elsa sighed in relief, then quirked a brow at him.

“I didn’t expect you to dance so well. I can’t have been your first.” 

To her surprise, Jack flushed a little.

“I used to watch from the chandeliers. You people never look up and leave the balcony open a lot in the summer.”

Elsa chuckled.

“And practised when no one was looking?”

Jack looked away but nodded his head ruefully.

“And practised when no one was looking…”

Elsa shared a warm smile and rested her hands on his shoulders once more.

“Well, I’m honoured to be your first,” she repeated, lowering her lashes invitingly.

Jack grinned and gently held her waist as the next song played…

* * *

Kristoff searched urgently for any sign of the Servitors, but the parade of rapturous nobles remained unbroken- for now. Kristoff glanced at the ornate double doors that Anna had disappeared behind. His chest tightened. It was impossible to imagine what was going on behind them, but parents who were willing to risk everything to save you- he couldn’t imagine what that was like. Nevertheless, Elsa had told him that terrible fairytale…

Once upon a time there was a girl who was born to a loving Marquis and Marchioness. She was their pearl, their heart, their light. But she was not to be theirs for long. On her sixth birthday, she summoned snowflakes out of the air. Her parents tried to hide her talents. They dismissed the governess, kept the young girl locked inside the Marquis’ quarters, and taught her to conceal her powers. But it was all for naught. It wasn’t long before the Air Caste seers secretly reported a vision of a girl with the Touch of Frost, sealed behind the ancient crest of the Arendelle Tribe. Under the orders of the Council of Heirs, the Servitors forced their way through the Marquis’ quarters and seized the little girl, claiming her for the Kingdom. 

She was only eight at the time, forced to live in a vast, empty room, devoid of the least bit of love and affection. Every moment of her life henceforth was to be spent in preparation for a pilgrimage that would make her queen or imprison her forever in a maze of deathlike immortality and enigmatic magic.

The Marquis and Marchioness were to be elevated to the rank of Duke and Duchess, like all parents or guardians of the heir presumptives had been before, but they refused it. Instead, they had to be bound and delivered to their ducal quarters of the Hall of Falling Twilight and imprisoned within. Order, the Council declared, had to be maintained. The Marquis and Marchioness were not allowed any display of defiance. As further punishment, the Servitors, who in any case restricted the heir presumptives from meeting their former families too often, completely forbade the Marquis and Marchioness from meeting their daughter. The Council would only relent if the Marquis and Marchioness would commit to a proclamation of gratitude to the Council for honouring their daughter and their tribe with their newfound positions. Of course, the Marquis and Marchioness could never consent to that. In the absence of the Sovereign, there was no higher power to which they could appeal. And so this cruelty would continue until a new Sovereign returned.

And so the tale was supposed to end. 

But how many Dukes and Duchesses had had to suffer the loss of their children? How many could have assuaged their grief and guilt with the trappings of wealth and privilege? How many would have found a way to spend one more moment, stolen one more day, from merciless fate to be with their captive children? Prisoners of a palace named, perhaps, for the unspeakable sorrow it contained. The Frozen Tear. 

For even in a frozen tear, the glimmer of hope may yet be found. No record will exist of those who built the network of secret passages connecting the various ducal quarters, but those who walked them could feel the centuries of desperation and longing etched into the very passage walls. My son. My daughter. My father. My mother. My sibling. My lover. An eternity of never, hiding a single moment of once more. 

A tea party. A grand ball. A seasonal feast. The Dukes and Duchesses took turns finding the excuse, while the others found their way. And then a door opens, and a familiar face weeps. Joy mingled with sorrow for love’s momentary triumph. 

And now Kristoff guarded those tears. He smiled, ignoring the ache of the bruises that hadn’t faded from his face. Crossing his arms, Kristoff stood squarely before the doors, his eyes resolute.

* * *

“Hans…” Jamie soothed as beads of liquid, tinted red, dripped down the arcs of his arms and fingers, “Hans, we definitely need to get help. Jack will know what to-” 

Hans gripped Jamie’s shirt desperately.

“You will tell no one! Or- or I won’t ever let you near me again! Do you hear me!”

“But you’re hurt!” Jamie protested, close to tears.

“I’m just… I’m just leaking…” Hans’ lids shuddered shut. “Is this… some witch curse?”

Jamie shook his head forcefully.

“Jack’s magic doesn’t hurt people!”

“Well, he did something!” Hans hissed.

Jamie flicked his eyes to the dancing nobles and spread his hands over Hans’ chest nervously. They came away wet and stained. Jamie clenched his hands and shook his head again.

“Jack’s magic doesn’t hurt people. I don’t know what this is… but it’s not Jack!”

Hans pushed him away impatiently, struggling to get to his feet. Jamie tried to help him, but Hans shoved him aside.

“Stay away from me, outcaste-spawn! Haven’t you savages done enough?”

Raising a hand with effort, Hans crafted an icicle-cane out of thin air and levered himself up with it.

Jamie looked on crestfallen as Hans hobbled away, not catching the terror in the prince’s eyes.

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself to finish this off (I started last year after watching Frozen 2 the first time), so I could focus on a little project I have planned to make writing a career of sorts *cough*, but I ended up enjoying myself quite a bit, returning to this. Anyway, I've been shipping Jack Frost and Elsa for years now, so I'm glad that this will be my last fanfiction for a while (though I definitely will be trawling through AO3 for the works of you guys). I hope this work brings you some pleasure, and wherever and however it offends, I beg for your forgiveness. Thank you for joining me on this journey.


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